They organizations plan to launch a consultative panel, possibly in April, together with copyright organizations including the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers and the Association of Copyright for Computer Software. They will then begin making guidelines for disconnecting users from the Internet who leak illegally copied material onto the Net.

The four organizations include the Telecom Service Association and the Telecommunications Carriers Association. About 1,000 major and smaller domestic providers belong to the four associations, which means the measure would become the first countermeasure against Winny-using rights-violators used by the whole provider industry.

Can’t say that this comes as a shock. The reaction against illegal file sharing, which began in the United States, has spread to Europe, and now, Asia. Chalk it up to a super-effective lobbying effort by well-organized copyright interests representing software companies, music labels, and the film industry.

Two years ago, a major Internet provider tried to introduce a measure to disconnect users from the Internet whenever the company detected the use of Winny or other file-sharing software.

The number of users of file-sharing software such as Winny in the country is estimated to be about 1.75 million, with most of the files exchanged using the software believed to be illegal copies.

A brief six-hour survey by a copyright organization monitoring the Internet found about 3.55 million examples of illegally copied gaming software, worth about 9.5 billion yen at regular software prices, and 610,000 examples of illegally copied music files, worth 440 million yen, that could be freely downloaded into personal computers using such software, the sources said. In other words, this survey alone, uncovered damages amounting to 10 billion yen.

Will this hold up in court? I don’t know much about Japanese civil law so if anyone out there has more information, I’d love to hear more. On the surface–and admittedly, I don’t have more facts other than the initial wire report–this sounds like a classic overreaction. But that’s been the main theme in the conflict between the establishment and new technology threatening to undermine its business model.

What will you do with such an impressive boost to JavaScript? I suspect that this will lead to far more applications being written specifically for Firefox. Will this mean that Firefox, not Internet Explorer, will become the new default target development platform for Web developers? Perhaps. If they can squeeze more functionality and performance out of Firefox, that’s where their development time is going to be spent.

commentary

TraceMonkey dramatically improves Firefox performance

The next question would be, “What will Firefox do with its market dominance?” Unlike Microsoft, which sat on its hands as soon as IE knocked off Netscape, Mozilla is almost certainly going to keep doing what it has always done: push the envelope of browser development and innovation. That’s what happens when you’re led by a community, not a monopolist.

Thanks to Mozilla’s pioneering work with TraceMonkey, however,
Firefox is about to become even faster. Think massive performance boost.

(Credit:
Mozilla)

The goal of the TraceMonkey project–which is still in its early stages–is to take JavaScript performance to another level, where instead of competing against other interpreters, we start to compete against native code.

I like this new overlord.

Firefox is already plenty fast. In one test, it comes in just behind
Safari in speed, but in this case, “slightly slower” still means “blazingly fast.”

How fast is that? Mozilla shows some early results of its efforts:

Today Firefox is still the province of geeks, but its increasing market share among Web developers suggests that it’s already overtaking Internet Explorer in developer affections. With an impressive speed boost, it’s very likely that this movement away from IE will become a mass exodus.

Related:
Floor Planner helps to plan your pad
Best4c does quick and slick charts
Gliffy, the online Visio killer

(Credit:
CNET Networks)

I don’t think it’s really a perfect way to simulate the effects of moving actual furniture, but in about 10 minutes I had put together a pretty slick looking pad. Like I mentioned before you can actually purchase items you like through the tool’s sister site, although it’s based in the UK, meaning if you don’t live there you’ll have to track down the local counterparts.

[via Delicious]

Furniture juggernaut IKEA has its own tools that are a little similar but they’re separated into kitchen, bedroom, and office, and must be downloaded and installed on your machine. In that regard, MyDeco’s got the upper hand since it will run right in your browser as long as you’ve got Flash installed.

We’ve covered a ton of floor planners on Webware, but none of them have been as cool as MyDeco. The tool throws in the usual assortment of tables, chairs, beds, and other living accouterments that you can price, purchase, and move around in a customizable space.

The tool lets you emulate single rooms or an entire house by plugging in the dimensions and adding walls, windows, and doors. It also manages to give you a 3D view of what those items will look like in that space, not just from the top down like most floor planners. In this mode you can zoom around, or pinpoint any angles using a virtual camera and take snapshots to send to your cohabitants. It’s just plain cool.

Yahoo Music’s going to join Amazon.com in offering DRM-free MP3s, either for free as part of an advertising-supported service, or for sale on a per-download basis, according to anonymous record company executives cited in this AP story.

I’ll wait on the details before speculating further as to whether a revamped Yahoo Music will hit or miss.

Ian Rogers, the exec in charge of Yahoo’s music service, has certainly thought long and hard about the future of the music industry, and Yahoo’s got tons of traffic (which it hasn’t done a very good job of monetizing, but that’s another story). I like the site’s search interface–it’s a lot better than Amazon’s, which mixes MP3 downloads and physical CDs with no rhyme or reason–and it’s the only major commercial music download site that offers lyrics.

What not to do: stay wedded to Windows Media Audio, require a subscription fee or online registration, or (worst of all) try and create yet another desktop application for playing music–we’ve got plenty of those already, and most
iPod users will stick with iTunes.

They’ve got a fighting chance, in other words, but will need something extra to differentiate themselves from the rapidly growing pack. Some ideas: offer a range of bitrates, all the way up to lossless. Do more with the lyrics, like integrating them into music streams, then scrolling them across the Yahoo Media Player when users play or link to a song that’s hosted on the Yahoo streaming service. Make it as easy as possible for independent artists to post their files on the site, like CDBaby and (recently) Last.fm–depth of catalog is key.

(Credit:
Screenshot)

I can access that music for more devices and more places and so it’s becoming more convenient. I think that Spotify is hitting the market at the right time. I don’t know it’s that novel of an idea but I think it’s got great timing and great user functionality.

But just don’t call the privately held INgrooves a music label. “I don’t like the label… label,” quipped Robb McDaniels, the company’s CEO.

We provide sort of a menu of services that you can pick and choose from. It starts with distribution and it’s really the entire supply chain process for content managers. What we’ve built is more of an asset management system rather than just a distribution infrastructure.

I think what’s really happening is consumer behavior patterns are changing. It used to be when we’re moving from the CD to the digital download everybody was saying that music fans still want to hold something, hold the physical good in their hand and that’s why CD sales would stay strong. Now consumer behavior is moving more towards digital downloads and everybody is saying everybody wants to own the download and they want to carry it with them wherever they go and streaming models aren’t going to take off. Well now the consumer is saying I don’t need to own the download. I’m happy with a cloud model where all my media is housed somewhere in an Internet locker for me and I can access it at any time. One of the reasons that consumer behavior is changing is because streaming is becoming more portable and interoperable.

Spotify is one of your distribution partners. That’s the site everybody is talking about in Europe right?

McDaniels: We’ve just signed Spotify. There certainly has to be a music solution out there that’s getting all the buzz. In the seven years we’ve been doing this I can’t tell you the number of times that one of my employees has come into my office and told me this is going to change the way we consume music or this is going to spell the end of us. Snocap was one at one point. Spotify is certainly getting all the buzz now. It’s a streaming-based model that allows music fans to effectively access millions of songs and share playlists and I think their music interface is catching on with fans.

Tell me about what you’re doing for Nokia.

McDaniels: This is an extension of our deal with Nokia for their online stores. Comes With Music is their new initiative based out of the United Kingdom but I understand it’s about to launch in the U.S. and a few other territories. It’s another retail outlet for us. It’s another way to reach the consumer and a great outlet for our independent music. We sort of approach the retail model in much the same way we approach the client model. We’re agnostic to the manner to in which music fans consume music.

INgrooves, a digital distribution company, is fast becoming a favorite of music acts embarking on comebacks.

Who else have you done that for?
McDaniels: Artists we’ve worked for directly are Too Short, Tila Tequila, Snoop Dogg’s Doggystyle Records, Thievery Corporation, and the Crystal Method.

McDaniels recently spoke with CNET News to discuss where digital distribution was headed.

McDaniels says INgrooves is a service company that acts much like an indie record company, such as IODA or The Orchard, but has no wish to compete against record labels. And in fact, one of the 7-year-old company’s most important clients is Universal Music Group, the largest of the top four recording companies. Universal last year invested in INgrooves.

Tell me what artists you work with and give me an example of what you do for them.

McDaniels: We provide services to Universal Music Group, K-Tell and VP Records as well as successful artists that are going out on their own: people like Dolly Parton and Too Short. We did Dolly Parton’s last release worldwide digital. Dolly formed her own label called Dolly Records and was looking for a digital partner for distribution and digital marketing. We signed her to an agreement and she opted into our worldwide digital distribution and our strategic marketing services. Our marketing group did an analysis of which retail partners would be the best ones, would do exclusives on the Dolly album, “Backwoods Barbie.” We then set about executing the marketing plan leading up to the release and then pushed it out to all of our online and mobile outlets on the day of the release. It was Dolly’s highest Billboard debut ever. We did very well digitally for her. The album has gone on to sell over 130,000 copies.

Q: Do you consider yourself a label?

McDaniels: I don’t like the label…label. We provide some services that an artist would expect from a label. We provide some services that an independent label would expect from a major label. I think we are as good as anyone out there in terms of digital distribution and marketing.

What is your relationship like with retailers and services such as YouTube?

McDaniels: We deliver content into YouTube, audio and video, for INgrooves clients. We sit in the middle. We’re like a clearinghouse between content owners, typically labels or artists, and online and mobile retailers. We’re like the Visa of media. We receive back from all of the retail channels all of the sale statements and process all of the paybacks to the content owners. We see all of the sales data, all of the content. We know who’s buying what, where, when and how much.

Last year, San Francisco-based INgrooves oversaw digital distribution and marketing for the release of Dolly Parton’s album “Backwoods Barbie.” The record debuted as the No. 1 country album on iTunes. This spring, when the spoof metal group Spinal Tap releases its first album since 1992, the boys in the band are trusting INgrooves to distribute the material to iTunes, Amazon, and other online retailers.

What are you doing for Universal?

McDaniels: About a year ago they made a strategic investment in us and we are providing them with digital distribution services. They looked at our software platform and they felt that it would be the right thing for the delivery of their content in North America. What our system does is handle the Universal Music Group Distribution labels and we deliver all their content under their contracts in all of North American retailers.

So, if I’m a label or artist, I hire you to do what?

McDaniels: We’re agnostic to whether you’re a label, artist, production company; really we work for anybody that controls the rights to media, images, video, and of course audio.

You’re doing only UMGD. Why aren’t you doing delivery for all of its labels, such as Geffen?

McDaniels: Universal is obviously a very big client for us. They have a large catalog. The digital logistics business is very complex. Nobody really other than the people involved understands the complexities involved. To take on that large of a catalog with all the intricacies of distributing out to dozens if not hundreds of different retailers is a large undertaking so we decided to stage the migration of their catalog to our system.

For me, the trick was both to enjoy the ride and to try to take pictures and shoot video. At first, I couldn’t figure out why the pictures were coming out fuzzy, but then I realized it was the fact that the camera had no idea what to do with the 3D images.

Unfortunately, though, we couldn’t work out a way to expedite entry to “Soarin’,” so I decided to try my luck at getting one of Disney World’s FastPasses–which allow you to get a ticket guaranteeing quick entry much later in the day–for the ride.

(Credit:
Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

“Soarin’” is actually pretty sweet: it puts you in the seat of what is meant to be something along the lines of a hang-glider and then whisks you, with your seat seeming to rush into the wind, diving or climbing with what you see on screen, up, down and over things like the Golden Gate Bridge, a ski slope, a Napa vineyard, the ocean, a river, a desert, and more.

Until I put the glasses in front of the lens, that is. Both for my camera, and then for the Nokia phone (see video below).

There were also little details that only the careful eye would catch, such as some child’s books painted on the wall, the author of one of which was named Lasseter. For the Pixar fans among us, that’s an obvious reference to Toy Story director and current Disney Chief Creative Officer John Lasseter.

Even if some lawyers got in the way of all my fun on my Segway.

Sure enough, we wandered straight to the front of the “Test Track” line. This is a pretty cool ride that puts guests in the front seat of a car that is then rushed through Disney scale representations of 10 different tests that General Motors cars go through before they can hit the road.

The ride, which opened last month at Disney World and is set to open later this month at Disneyland, is a super fast-paced cacophony of an adventure based on the story line from Pixar’s Toy Story films.

I was sitting inside a small dome, antsy to get going on the special Segway tour of this famous theme park that I had arranged. But before they would let me or any of the others on the tour head out and ride around on our gyroscopic human transporters, we had to sit through more than half an hour of tedious, but entirely practical, training.

At Epcot Center in Orlando, Fla., I joined a Segway tour of the park. But before we could head out, we had to undergo about 30 minutes of training to make sure no one endangered themselves or anyone else.

Afterward, we got back in my escort’s van and zipped back over to Epcot. I still wanted a chance to go on two more of the popular rides there: “Test Track” and “Soarin’.” And I figured why wait in hour-plus lines for them if I could take advantage of the secret entrances my escort could lead me to.

We were instructed, by the way, not to carry anything in our hands while we rode the Segways. But what is a reporter to do? So I tried to surreptitiously carry my Nokia smartphone in my hand so I could shoot Qik video (see below) of the ride. I only got caught once.

They included a large set of dominoes and a huge View-Master reel hanging from the ceiling, as well as a giant Tinker-Toy structure that all the cars have to drive through.

So you hop into a small
car, which races off into a tunnel–very Disney-esque, of course–and one by one, you have to shoot at these villains, who appear on a screen on the wall in front of you.

Well, fair enough. Finally, we finished up, and led by a genial woman named Carole, we headed out into Epcot for a leisurely and decidedly untaxing tour around the World Showcase, the park’s collection of small scale model representations of some of the famous buildings, stores, towers and so forth from countries like France, Japan, China, Italy, Morocco, and others.

Riding the Segways was one of the suggestions I got from readers when I asked last week what I should do at Disney World when I visited as part of Road Trip 2008, my journey around the South. And I have to say, it was a great idea. I love Segways, first of all, and secondly, how great is it to glide around effortlessly on a hot day when everyone else is working up a sweat just strolling from point A to point B.

As you fire away, you accumulate points as you hit targets. As I understand it, the ride offers up a lot of “easter eggs,” or hidden surprises. But I was too wrapped up in trying to document it to shoot much. I ended up with a rather pathetic score, especially when measured against the impressive total racked up by my escort.

(Credit:
Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

While riding the ‘Toy Story Mania’ ride at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, I figured out that if I put my 3D glasses in front of my camera, I could take pictures of the target screens without them coming out blurry.

Sure enough, I was one of the very last people to get one of the tickets, but my time wasn’t for about six hours. So I went back to my hotel, did some work, and then finally returned, right on time.

Fun stuff, actually, and another attraction you, my beloved readers, had suggested I try.

It was pretty exhilarating. In parts, at least. The realistic effects of the seats rocking back and forth definitely helped, as did the huge screen and the larger-than life video on it.

EPCOT CENTER, Fla.–Ah, lawyers.

Finished with “Soarin’,” my day was pretty much over. A long day, to be sure, but one with plenty of thrills.

Truthfully, the tour wasn’t that informative. We got maybe 30 seconds of information about each of the countries we stopped in and then we moved quickly on. I think the real point was to give us enough fodder to make us want to return later when we were on our feet.

The idea is that you find yourself plopped down into a huge model of the little boy’s room from the films and are tasked with battling a whole series of different nemeses.

After all, when you’re Disney, you want to make sure you cover all your bases when it comes to liability.

Being a modern ride, this attraction is full of little tricks. For example, what you see on the screen is in 3D, so you have to wear 3D glasses to see the targets properly. Also, you are firing at them with a gun mounted on your car, and you are shooting digital bullets at them which splat satisfyingly on the screen. Well, at least they seem to. They’re digital, after all.

We had taken a back entrance into the ride so that we didn’t have to wait in the extremely long line, but after finishing we went back into the main area so that we could see some of the cool details the designers had added.

As our instructors told us how to get on and how to get off, how to speed up and how to slow down and so many other crucial things, I could detect the work of people in suits at a firm somewhere that probably had an ampersand in its name.

After we returned to our starting point–no Epcot patrons were harmed in this experiment–I was met by a member of Disney World’s public relations team who kindly escorted me to a van stashed conveniently nearby in staff parking, and we set off for Disney’s Hollywood Studios for a whirlwind tour of the not new ride there, “Toy Story Mania.”

The Anti-Malware Test Lab and AV-Comparatives.org announced on Tuesday an alliance designed to create one of the most respected sources of objective, independent information about antivirus products.

“I’m sure that our partnership will act as a driving force for the development of the industry as a whole,” said Sergey Ilyin, founder of Anti-Malware Test Lab. Anti-Malware Test Lab is an independent Russian test laboratory, a subsidiary of Anti-Malware.ru. The laboratory is best known for testing active infection treatments, antivirus heuristics, and anti-rootkit protection.

Clementi further hinted that if this alliance works out, there may be additional alliances of independent antivirus software-testing labs.

This is the second partnership of antivirus-testing organizations in recent months.

Andrea Clementi, founder of AV-Comparatives, said in a statement that “the partnership with Anti-Malware Test Lab will allow us to evaluate more aspects of antivirus software and to offer users a more comprehensive independent view of various security products.”

In January, various antivirus vendors, independent testing labs, and media outlets gathered in Spain to work toward creating the Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization (AMTSO). That group includes vendors F-Secure, Kaspersky Lab, McAfee, Panda Software, and Symantec, and independent testing labs AV-Test.org and AV-Comparatives. The alliance announced on Tuesday is different, said Clementi, because it allows Anti-Malware.ru to share AV-Comparatives’ test results.

Corrected at 6:50 a.m. PDT March 26: The last paragraph has been revised to correctly describe a second antivirus partnership.

This post will be updated continually to track activity on the
Conficker worm, the latest variant of which had been expected to hit the Internet on April 1. For more background on Conficker, click here or read below.

IBM ISS’s X-Force group also reported that things were quiet, at least for the moment, in Asia where most of the infections are. Nearly 45 percent are in Asia, followed by Europe at about 30 percent, 13.6 percent in South America and 5.8 percent in North America, according to the Frequency X blog.

The worm exploits a vulnerability in Windows that Microsoft patched in October and spreads through weakly protected network shares and via removable storage devices, like USB drives.

March 31, 7:25 p.m. PDT: Trend Micro’s Paul Ferguson reports that things seem quiet. “So far, there’s been no significant activity,” he said, adding that a Trend Micro researcher in the Philippines reported seeing the same amount of traffic on Wednesday as he had been seeing the past few days in Asia-Pacific.

April 1, 6:35 a.m. PDT: McAfee says its Avert Labs is seeing Conficker-infected hosts attempting to call their “master” to get instructions, but those calls are not getting through. “This could be deliberate and the infected hosts may try again later, perhaps over the weekend when people aren’t watching as closely,” McAfee spokesman Joris Evers says. Hear more on this podcast. And for more technical details on what the worm is doing, McAfee Avert Labs has an updated blog posting.

IBM ISS also said it had found a way for ISPs to detect infected computers on a network by monitoring the peer-to-peer communications the worm makes between infected PCs.

The owners of the infected computers likely won’t notice anything, unless they can’t access the Web sites of security vendors and then they will know they are infected, he said. Trend Micro has figured out a way to unblock the computer from the sites that the worm has blocked using a Microsoft networking service, he said. More details are on the Trend Micro site.

March 31, 4:00 p.m. PDT: The Conficker worm is stirring on some infected computers in Asia where it’s April 1, but so far the activity is very tame, security researchers say.

The latest variant of the worm, Conficker.C, was set to activate on April 1, which for some of the infected machines will happen at local time and for others it will be GMT, depending on whether the machines are turned on and connected to the Internet, he said.

Conficker.C also shuts down security services, blocks computers from connecting to security Web sites, and downloads a Trojan. It reaches out to other infected computers via peer-to-peer networking, in addition to being programmed to reach out to 500 domains to receive updated copies or other malware instead of just 250 domains as earlier versions did.

“Nothing at this point; we’re running updates every half hour or so,” Dave Marcus, director of security research for McAfee Avert Labs, said when asked to report what he was seeing. “They’re supposed to connect to one of a variety of Web sites and download a piece of code. What that code is supposed to do is up in the air.”

“We’ve seen activity in honeypot machines in Asia…They’re generating the 50,000 list of (potential) domains to contact,” said Paul Ferguson, an advanced threats researcher for Trend Micro.

Experts say the worm could be used to steal passwords or other sensitive data from infected computers, or turn them into a botnet that sends out spam.

Click here for an FAQ about the worm.

April 1, 3:27 a.m. PDT: At F-Secure, a Wednesday morning post says there’s still nothing much to report, other than a few April Fools’ jokes circulating on the Web:

(Credit: Trend Micro)

This graphic shows what Conficker.C is programmed to do on April 1.

The process seems to be starting slowly, with infected machines starting to generate the list of domains and then picking one domain and trying to contact it and waiting before continuing on through 500 of those 50,000 domains, according to Ferguson.

Capossela also stressed that Microsoft is focusing its efforts on new ways of selling Office and creating online products that complement Office, not replicating the suite on the Web. He said that Microsoft still doesn’t see much competition from Google Apps.

That said, Microsoft has yet to sell the product to those retailers or determine how much it will charge for the subscription product, which combines Office 2007 Home and Student Edition, Windows Live OneCare security, and other free Windows Live services.

“This is a trial,” he said. “This is a pilot. This is a ‘Can we build software that will do this?’ ”

Capossela put Works SE in the same category as several other new approaches, including the Albany subscription service that Microsoft detailed this week. Also in that camp would be the prepaid Office cards that Microsoft has been selling in some countries for more than a year now.

Microsoft was not quick to seize on selling directly over the Web, Capossela said.

Have you seen the ad-based Works on a PC? If so, drop me a note at ina dot fried at CNET dot com and let me know which model.

The one area where Capossela said Microsoft has seen significant sales is the download and purchase of Office over the Web. Customers either download a trial version of Office directly from Microsoft or get it with a new PC. After 60 days of use, they are prompted to buy a full version from Microsoft or a partner (partners typically sell the product cheaper than Microsoft).

“There’s no business here yet,” he said. “These are all experiments.”

“This is designed for a certain sales motion and if that sales motion didn’t exist, this product probably wouldn’t exist,” he said.

According to its Web site, Packard Bell offers the software on some of its models in the United Kingdom. Using the same sleuthing technique (a search engine), it appears Sony is one of those offering it in the U.S.

The ad-funded Works falls into a category of several products the company is exploring, rather than a significant new source of revenue, said Microsoft Vice President Chris Capossela.

Last August, Microsoft said that it would start piloting Works SE, but the company gave few details on where or how the product would be offered.

None of these areas are significant new channels as yet.

“We’re late,” he said. “If you look at Symantec and Intuit, they have huge businesses here.”

Response to that last product, which sells Office in six-month increments for around $20, has been mixed. The cards were a hit in South Africa, but bombed in Mexico.

Microsoft remains cagey on the details of where you can find Works SE. The company has been testing Works SE in 5 countries: The United States, France, Canada, Poland and the United Kingdom. It is available only through select computer makers and Microsoft won’t say which computer makers those are.

Microsoft has been considering such a product for some time, with many inside the company arguing that Microsoft could make significantly more money for Works by selling advertising than it gets in revenue from computer makers for the product.

Works SE (which stands for Sponsored Edition) is free to PC makers, though they don’t get a cut of the ad revenue. Large computer makers typically only pay a buck or two for the low-end version of Works, though.

Users who run the software see a small ad as they are writing their document or editing their spreadsheet. Although the program has the ability to update its set of ads online, today it runs mostly ads for Microsoft and a few partners, all of which ship with the product itself.

After years of exploring the matter, Microsoft has finally started offering an ad-funded version of Microsoft Works in some countries.

Capossela said the early response to the free product has been positive. “People have liked the price,” he said with a laugh, adding that it has also not been perceived as that intrusive, something Microsoft had worried about.

“We haven’t seen them yet,” he said. “We’ve seen a love affair in the press. We haven’t seen customers embracing Google Apps.”

Updated 4:15 p.m. with details on the countries in which Works SE is being offered.

The 42PFL5603D is the new energy-efficiency champ.

(Credit:
Philips)

In default picture mode, we estimate it will cost just $28.69 in electricity to run the 42PFL4603D for a year–about $6 less than its closest competitor–while power saver mode brings that cost down to $21.28. That estimate assumes a cost of 10.6 cents per kilowatt hour and a picture-on time of 8 hours per day, both national averages.

The bad news? The Eco TV uses a novel variable backlight to achieve its low wattage numbers, turning the light output down in dark scenes. Most other LCDs keep the backlight, and thus power use, at a constant level regardless of screen content. We haven’t has a chance to test it thoroughly, but initial indications are that the fluctuating backlight harms picture quality, flashing subtly but distractingly enough to annoy careful watchers, especially in transitions between light and dark scenes. We’ll have the complete story when the full 42PFL5603D review posts later next week.

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It’s official: The Philips 42PFL5603D consumes less power than any HDTV we’ve tested, regardless of screen size. The so-called Eco TV earned our nod for Best in Show at CES by hugging trees harder than any flat-panel HDTV yet. We based that decision partly on a Watts Up! power meter Philips had set up in its booth, which showed the 42-inch LCD sucking down electricity at a miserly rate between 60 and 80 watts (check out the video).