Film yields to fiber optics: Movies usually are shipped to Singapore theaters on film reels. But the latest installment of the Hong Kong crime thriller “Infernal Affairs” made its way to a cineplex in the Asian city-state in a novel fashion: It got beamed through undersea fiber-optic cables.

Singapore Telecom handled the transfer of the 80-gigabyte video file as part of a wider plan by Singapore’s government to combine fiber-optic networks, digital cinemas and tough intellectual property laws to become an Asian digital distribution hub for Hollywood studios.

The digital transfer is far cheaper than having 35-mm film reels copied and delivered by courier. And its instantaneous quality prevents pirated versions of a film from being sold on streets before the reels arrive at cinemas, said SingTel marketing vice president Thomas Yeo.

Bone-rattling phone: Talking on the phone even in crowded, noisy places will be made easy with a new handset in Japan that sends vibrations through the human skull to relay sound.

The phone, manufactured by Sanyo Electric Co. and called TS41 by the mobile subsidiary of Japanese telecommunications company KDDI Corp., is going on sale this month for about 10,000 yen ($93), company spokesman Kiyoshi Yamasaki said Wednesday.

It works as a regular cell phone when the folding handset is opened, but users can also use it when it is closed by putting it next to their faces. The tiny vibrations from the phone travel through bones in the face to the ear – even if the phone isn’t placed next to the ear.

“The voice sounds clear even if you’re wearing earplugs,” Yamasaki said.

This is not the only bone-rattling phone in the works. Japan’s leading mobile carrier, NTT DoCoMo, has an experimental model called Finger Whisper that is merely a wristband with a microphone and earphone in it. Users talk into the wristband while sticking a finger in their ears, sending it vibrations that the ear and the brain convert to sound.

More calls over Internet: About 13 percent of international voice traffic is now carried by Internet telephony, the low-cost, feature-rich technology lately being introduced to consumers.

Although less than one-fifth of 1 percent of U.S. phone lines use a “Voice over Internet Protocol” phone service such as Vonage, the technology is making huge inroads behind the scenes, in long-distance networks and at big companies, according to a new report by TeleGeography.

The 13 percent of global phone traffic that analyst Stephan Beckert estimates is now transported via voice over IP accounts for nearly 24.5 billion minutes a year. In 2002, voice over IP’s share of international traffic was 10 percent; it was 4 percent in 2000.

TiVo demand creates shortages: After years of lukewarm demand, the elves at satellite television provider DirecTV are suddenly scrambling to fill holiday orders for its TiVo-based set-top boxes.

Some shoppers are finding they have to wait weeks before getting their digital video recording satellite receivers as “unprecedented demand” has led to supply shortages at various stores, DirecTV spokesman Bob Marsocci said Wednesday.

Marsocci said the backlog was limited to particular locations and not nationwide. Most large consumer electronics retailers still have inventory, he said.

The shortage is of DirecTV receivers with TiVo Inc.’s pioneering digital video recording technology that lets TV viewers record shows to a hard drive and pause live programming.

Demand surged after DirecTV lowered the price of its TiVo-based devices in October from $200 to $99, including installation.

The Associated Press