ARM Mali now has DRM on-chip

ARM the company that designs microprocessors and micro-controllers that are used in high-end smartphones down to dishwashers has announced a new range of graphics co-coprocessor with digital rights management (DRM) built-in.

ARM has been forging relationships with bodies to support its TrustedZone security implementations in its ARM cores, now it is extending this with DRM backed into its video processing hardware (Mali) and it has just announced the Mali-V500 which supports 1080p/60 encoding and can decode up to 120 frames per second with a resolution of 4K. This should make the chips appealing to video companies like Netflix who want modern hardware, but also want to appease Hollywood with native DRM support.

ARM have also released new CPU cores, the Cortex-A12 (mid-range smartphone, faster than current Cortex-A9 technology). ARM also boast the performance of the Cortex-A15 supersedes Intel's low power core technology, even though it's based on their new 3D transistor at 22nm.

Newer ARM chips will migrate to 20nm technologies and even 16/14nm designs and they say that will keep them ahead of Intel for the foreseeable future.

The Next Generation Secure Memory Initiative to secure mobile devices

Panasonic, Samsung Electronics, SanDisk, Sony and Toshiba have teamed up to form the The Next Generation Secure Memory Initiative which will put DRM (Digital Rights Management) on to mobile devices and memory.

This should allow content providers to put their content on mobile devices securely, allowing Blu-ray HD films to be copied on to a mobile device and played.

The system uses public key infrastructure to ensure robust copy protection.

If they achieve their aims, then the technology should be available on Flash memory such as SD Cards and on Google's Android, connected TVs and Blu-ray players.

EMI to offer DRM free music through iTunes

EMI has ditched DRM for music sold through the iTunes store.

New music will be encoded at 256Kb/s (compared to current DRM encoded tracks at 128Kb/s), each track will cost 99p (compared to 79p for DRM encoded).

Users can automagically upgrade all their DRM tracks to non-DRM'ed tracks for 20p per track.

Future video content from EMI will not be DRM'ed and there will be no increase in price.

This is a major change for a big music label and hopefully is the way of things to come.