The BBC is going to sell episodes of Dr Who and Red Dwarf that can be viewed on mobile phones. The episodes will be sold on a 64Mb MMC card as a two-hour package, eliminating the need for any downloading.

Amazon.com announced Amazon Shorts, a new feature that offers original short stories, personal essays and other nonfiction works from known, and some famous, authors for only 49 cents a pop.

Sony has released its 2.0 firmware update for users of its PlayStation Portable (PSP) in North America. Macworld reports it introduces the ability to browse Web pages using the PSP’s built in WiFi wireless networking support.

Intel discussed developments that the company claims will herald a new era of cooperating standards in wireless. ZDNet says one of the latest standards committees, 802.21 is developing protocols that cover both 802-type wireless networks and mobile telephony.

Business Week reports that Sony and Toshiba have failed to agree on a unified format for next-generation DVDs. Talks have been suspended indefinitely between a group of companies led by Sony, which supports the Blu-ray format, and the Toshiba-led bloc, which backs the HD-DVD format.

Internet News reports wireless equipment maker Airspan Networks and UK ISP Pipex Communications have begun a six-month WiMax trial. WiMax is a developing technology that supports very high bit rates in uploading and downloading from a base station up to a distance of 30 miles.

The Olympian has this review of the Palm LifeDrive. The new product is positioned to compete with other portable hard-drive media players, such as the Apple iPod Photo, the Archos PMA400 and Creative’s Zen Portable Media Center, and with Pocket PCs such as Hewlett-Packard’s iPAQ hx4700.

At MajorNelson.com, the blog for Xbox Live’s community manager, Xbox executive J Allard participated in a chat to answer people’s questions about the Xbox 360 pricing options and multiple configurations, as well as general questions that related to Xbox 360. Daily Game posted a transcript of the chat.

Apple commands 80 percent of the MP3 player market and 75 percent of online music sales. But even as analysts predict another massive holiday sales season for the company this year, many believe Apple’s reign will last only another 12-18 months before the playing field levels out.

Universal Music Group is the latest company to support the Blu-ray optical disc, Sony’s next-generation media format. Blu-ray discs will look like DVDs, but they’ll hold substantially more data. Wired News has this rundown on key features of this emerging technology, and how it compares with the competing HD-DVD format.