The Pirate Bay has announced that it is to duck out of the torrent hosting game and instead focus on offering magnet links to its users.

On the surface this looks like a bit of a blow for the soon-not-to-be-a file-hosting site, but it is actually a shrewd move by the folks behind The Pirate Bay as it will make the site harder to pin down in court for copyright infringement.

That's because a magnet link doesn't actually have any file information, just some data. Client apps then take this data and find the file associated with the link.

It's obvious why The Pirate Bay has chosen now to change tack: the site's owners have been refused an appeal to their charges for copyright infringement and this has meant a number of significant changes have had to happen.

(Not) breaking the law

The biggest of these changes was the change of the domain from thepiratebay.org to thepiratebay.se – this is so the site doesn't fall prey to any messy US laws.

The Pirate Bay will now be a lot leaner and in turn much easier to host, so expect a number of mirrored sites to pop up just in case the main site is blocked for any reason.

All of this adds up to yet another headache for the likes of the MPAA and the RIA. In short, by forcing The Pirate Bay to make changes, the site may well be stronger than ever.

"Quite some time ago we decided to not host torrent files anymore," said Pirate Bay about the change in direction.

"In following with that decision, we decided to make Magnet links the default option for the Download buttons!

"We've just changed places on the links. Magnet is now default, Download torrent is now where the magnet links used to be. The reason is the same as always: Magnets are now good enough to use, and it's not as easy to block as .torrent files. Also it saves us a huge amount of bandwidth!"

It also revealed that the site will be completely torrent free (unless the torrent is shared by 10 peers or under) as of 29 February.

HTC could be about to enter the music streaming fray at MWC 2012 with a branded Spotify-competitor created as part of its partnership with Beats Audio.

Rumour has it that HTC is working closely with music industry mogul and Beats' head honcho Jimmy Iovine to create the streaming service after talks with existing companies, including Spotify, failed to go anywhere.

The as-yet unconfirmed music service would come as the default player on HTC phones and tablets. GigaOm's source couldn't provide any pricing details so we don't yet know if the service would be bundled with devices or if you'll have to cough up a monthly fee to use it.

HTCify

But why would HTC, a handset manufacturer, bother sticking its oar into the previously unrelated music streaming market? Same reason it gave movie rental a whirl in the not-massively-successful-thus-far HTC Watch: differentiation.

All the phone manufacturers work within the parameters of the OSes their products run, so any move they can make to differentiate their products from the milieu and create some kind of user loyalty is going to be worth a punt.

Particularly as the bloom seems to have come off the HTC rose in recent months, with the company's meteoric rise to top Android maker tempered by falling sales and dipping profits.

Nikon has revealed how many units of the new Nikon D800 semi-pro camera it intends to manufacture at its Sendai factory in Japan.

According to a report which appeared on Bernama, Malaysia's National News Agency, Nikon is aiming to produce 30,000 units of the D800 per month, while it also revealed that it is hoping to produce 5,000 Nikon D4 units every month.

Several Asian journalists visited the Sendai factory, with Nikon President Jiro Saito telling them that it had spent US$100 million repairing the factory after the devastating earthquake of March last year.

Camera every minute

Currently, the factory has around 1,600 workers, having the ability to produce one unit of camera per minute on a daytime shift. According to the report, a D800 can be produced in around four hours, while the D4 takes five.

Some components for camera production are sourced from overseas factories including Nikon China, with around 1600 component parts required to produce both the D800 and D4.

Both the new cameras were announced this year, with the D4 back at the beginning of January and the D800 just last week.

The D800 features a 36 million pixel sensor, making it the highest resolution full-frame camera in the world.

Originally slated for a mid-February release, recent reports have suggested that the D4 could be delayed until the middle of March. Meanwhile, pre-orders for the D800 were frozen in the US leading to speculation that there could also be a delay on those too.

Apple is seeking to sue Kodak over an alleged patent infringement relating to Kodak's printers, picture frames and cameras.

It's safe to say that 2012 hasn't been a good year for Kodak. After filing for bankruptcy protection in January, last week the company announced it would no longer be making cameras in a bid to restructure and save it from going under.

Over the past few years and months, Kodak has relied on selling off its extensive patent catalogue and launching law suits against a variety of companies for infringements on those patents.

However this time, Kodak is on the receiving end of a patent infringement lawsuit - and from the mighty Apple. Currently waiting for approval from a New York Court, Apple alleges that Kodak has infringed on technologies used in printers, digital cameras and digital picture frames.

Foes

Kodak and Apple are old enemies, having fought over patents previously. A ruling in June 2011 went against Kodak, with Apple claiming that it shared camera patents with the company.

If the US Bankruptcy court approves Apple's request to sue Kodak, the next stop is the International Trade Commission and the US District Court in New York.

From there, if Apple was to win its case, it could see core products from Kodak withdrawn from sale, which won't be good news after recent troubles.

Last week's announcement suggested that the company would be able to save $100million if it stopped producing cameras, with it even hinting that recently announced cameras at CES back in January will never come into being.

Android claimed over 50% of the smartphone market share in the last three months of 2011 which sees Google's mobile OS appearing on one in two smartphones.

According to stats gathered by Gartner the smartphone market witnessed huge growth in Q4 of 2011 with sales to end users reaching 149 million units - a 47.3% increase from the fourth quarter in 2010.

This boost in sales resulted in Android claiming 50.9% of the smartphone market, up from 30.5% in the same quarter in 2010. Apple also saw an increase in market share for its iOS system as it claimed 23.8% in Q4, up from 15.8% in 2010.

Symbian down as new kids storm in

Nokia's Symbian OS on the other hand saw a large drop in the smartphone market share, slipping down to third place with 11.7%.

It's not all bad news for Nokia though as Gartner reports that it's still the number one global vendor of mobile devices – with its entry level handsets widely shipped to Asia and other developing countries.

Emerging manufactures such as ZTE and Huawei have started to stake a claim in the mid and low-range smartphone markets and both companies saw gains during the last quarter of 2011 as they became the fastest growing mobile vendors after Apple.

ZTE is now the fifth largest mobile devices vendor in the world after it shipped 56 million handsets in 2011.

The increased presence of these newer companies has helped Android take the majority share in what is a very competitive smartphone market.

Gartner predicts Android's position will strengthen further in early 2012 as Apple's delayed launch of the next iPhone will see a decline in sales in the first two quarters of the year.

How Sony is trying to save the world

Sony is famous for a lot of things.

Most recently it's been the launch of the PS Vita and some disappointing financial results that have been getting the headlines.

But one thing Sony hasn't had much coverage over is its work to reduce its impact on the environment.

Of course, any manufacturer of oil-based plastic products creates a sizeable carbon footprint but Sony has become a shining example to other electronics manufacturers by committing to completely eliminate its negative effect on the environment by 2050.

The road to zero

The story starts at Sony's 25-storey, 124,041 square metre Osaki Home Entertainment HQ in Tokyo. Unbelievably, it only took a single year to build.

It's the very first building of its kind to use a natural 'bioskin' cooling system, and TechRadar was lucky enough to be invited to visit earlier today.

The bioskin is made up of a network of porous ceramic pipes that are made using soil. Rain water is collected from the roof of the building throughout the year and during the hot Japanese summer, the water is pumped back up through the pipes on the outside of the building.

The water penetrates the ceramic and evaporates from the pipe surface, which cools the surrounding air by around 2 degrees. This shields the building from the sun's intense heat and reduces the load on the CO2-producing air conditioning systems inside the building.

It's the kind of cutting-edge green-thinking that Sony is applying to many of its consumer electronics projects.

TVs made from old DVDs

Sony has also recently developed a new material for its products which is made from 99% recycled plastic. The material is called SoRPlas and is made from recycling old products.

Discarded DVDs are blended up and the metal film from their surface is peeled away. The optical sheets from discarded LCD TVs are also shredded and the resultant shrapnel is blended with the DVD fragments. The strength and stiffness of the recycled plastic can be manipulated according to the proportions of the mix.

This mix is then added to some dye and a very small amount of flame-retardant to make the plastic fireproof, and the resulting material is a plastic that's every bit as good as more 'fresh' plastic.

Using this method, Sony is now able to build products like earphones and its packaging from 100% recycled plastic. It's also now being used to build the bezels of some of Sony's TVs, while 80% of the plastic used in the HDRTD20V 3D camcorder is made from this SoRPlas material already.

Using this material means 77.3% less CO2 is produced compared to conventional plastic, and the aim is to use SoRPlas to replace as much plastic as possible across all of Sony's many factories.

The first step in Sony's 'road to zero' is to harness the environmental benefits of SorPLas to reduce the company's resource consumption by 30 per cent and its CO2 emissions 20% by 2015.

Life cycles

But the goal extends beyond manufacturing. Sony's ultimate aim is to include product life cycles into the zero-emissions plan, which means building energy efficient, environmentally friendly products and packaging.

That means recycled materials wherever possible, eliminating the use of hazardous mercury, developing more efficient solar cells, increasing power efficiency in products, reducing the size of packaging and developing more environmentally friendly battery technologies.

Sony has already ceased production of old-style LCD TVs, with 100 per cent focus on more efficient LED tech. This also means sets can be thinner, using less materials - and has the further effect of requiring smaller boxes.

The bio batteries are also very interesting - they feed renewable glucose and oxygen to natural enzymes to generate electricity. This tech is a way off being used in your everyday smartphone, but it's being developed and looked at very optimistically.

While the zero emissions goal is still very far away, it's initiatives and innovations like these that will make future generations wonder what kind of barbaric tree-hating gas guzzlers we really were.

Canon has said that even though compact camera sales are experiencing a general downturn, people are investing more in individual cameras purchased.

According to industry analysis, 2011 saw a 30% drop in the number of compact cameras sold, with smartphones with ever better cameras being pinpointed as the cause.

However, Canon, which though probably best known for its DSLRs, also manufacturers a wide range of compact cameras says these figures aren't worrying.

Canon UK's David Parry told TechRadar, "People are looking for different things in cameras now, a different design, a different look.

"They're looking for big zoom lenses in small cameras, that's what we're seeing and that's what people are asking for - they want big specifications, but they want them in tiny bodies."

Long zoom

We've seen a speight of compact cameras recently announced with huge optical zoom ranges. Where once the megapixel was king, now it seems marketeers have a new high number to push.

Canon's own IXUS 510 slots into its "stylish" range of cameras, but still manages to pack an impressive 12x zoom into its slim body.

Parry believes it is cheaper compacts that are really suffering. "What we're seeing is that people are investing more in digital compact cameras, the quantities might be going down, but the quality of what people are buying, the higher end cameras, isn't."

"At the moment smartphones aren't the answer to a good quality compact camera. They don't have the low light capability, they just can't capture the motion and they don't have the added features that you get from a quality compact."

"Canon plays in the higher end of the market, and we're still producing what we think are market leading cameras. There is nothing else like an IXUS camera out there, and that's where we're seeing the growth and the interest in the market."

Samsung has hinted that it may sell off its LCD TV making arm in order to focus on the more lucrative world of OLED TVs.

The news jives nicely with Samsung's earlier public mulling over the possibility of bringing its OLED display business, Samsung Mobile Display, in-house.

Play it off, keyboard cat

If you're staring sadly at your Samsung LCD TV and wondering where it all went wrong, we'll tell you: money.

LCD TV prices have steadily fallen over the past few years thanks to a flooded market and falling demand for LCD – it means that Samsung makes a loss on each LCD TV sold.

As if that wasn't bad enough, Samsung's LCD unit sales fell 10 per cent in 2011 due to lacklustre demand as well, so selling the entire unit off would make a lick of sense.

Much more enticing is the brave new world of OLED displays. Currently the darling of the smartphone and tablet world, OLED TVs are slowly but surely infiltrating the living room.

Samsung itself has a very lust-worthy 55-inch OLED TV heading to the UK in the second half of this year.

However, it is worth mentioning that Digitimes thinks Samsung will keep the LCD business and pump $6 billion into it in a bid to make it work. But, you know, Reuters v Digitmes. Who do you believe?

Now watch our video of the Samsung 55-inch OLED TV in all its glory while you mull that conundrum over:

The Hanns G HL229DPB monitor has a 21.5-inch screen with a 1920 x 1080 resolution and a 1,000:1 contrast ratio, all for the very wallet-friendly price of £89. But is it too good to be true?

As you might expect from an LED monitor, the HL229DPB's weight is pretty light, even by flatscreen standards. However, we were disappointed to see that for all its LED splendour, it's not much thinner than a standard LCD monitor, with a thickness of 48mm.

Less surprising is the lack of a HDMI port. The DVI input is HDCP compliant, which means if you've got a Blu-ray drive in your Mac you can use a HDMI-to-DVI cable to view Blu-rays on this monitor.

The buttons aren't ghastly to use, but not as pleasant as the touch sensitive icons found on other screens. It's not as good looking as Apple's own monitors, but it is a lot less expensive.

Of course, the most important question is how good is the image quality? Pretty good, as it happens. Throughout our tests colours were reproduced well, with gradients running smoothly, rather than the blocky juxtapositions of colours displayed by some cheap monitors.

As you'd expect from an LED monitor, contrasts between light and dark colours were very good. Text was impressive, even with small fonts. Viewing angles were also good.

Zynga, creator of the addictive FarmVille and Words With Friends games has released its Q4 earnings report showing huge growth, but also a net loss.

Q4 revenue hit US$311.2 million, a 58.9 percent increase on the same time last year.

Revenue figures for the entire year were even more impressive, showing a whopping 90.8 percent increase from 2010 to 2011 of $1.14 billion.

However despite this, the company posted a net loss which it attributed to expenses involved in the company's IPO and investment in new game development.

Pushing FarmVille, gaining users

Not that it's a cause for concern, as monthly active users hit the 240 million mark, up 23 percent from last year, and "monthly unique payers" climbed to 2.9 million.

It was recently discovered that Zynga is worth $445 million to Facebook which earns a cut of the Facebook credits used to buy items in games like Farmville.

Zynga is understandably optimistic about 2012, predicting yet more growth, although weighted towards the second half of the year.