On Thursday, the Virgin Megastore in Manhattan's Times Square, said to be the largest record store in the world, began marking down merchandise in preparation for its eventual closure later this quarter. If the writing wasn't already on the wall for traditional music retailers, it is now.

"This sale will give our loyal shoppers one last chance to browse the world's largest music store," stated Virgin Entertainment Group CEO Simon Wright. "We'll be offering discount prices on items that might be difficult to find in the days to come, and we hope our customers have a lot of fun shopping this final sale."

No matter how cheap those items get, or how hard they might be to find in physical form, they'll still be cheaper and more available via imeem, YouTube, bit torrent and the rest -- which is sort of the point here.

The Times Square location will be survived by five remaining Virgin MegaStores in the United States.

One of Allen Stanford's own lawyers has emerged as the key figure who prompted regulators to start legal action over alleged $9.2 billion fraud against the flamboyant Texan billionaire who sponsored a $1 million-a-man cricket match.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission lodged a civil suit against Mr Stanford and his Stanford Financial Group last night, claiming that it was investigating "a fraud of shocking magnitude that has spread its tentacles round the world".

The news is a stunning blow for the England and Wales Cricket Board and its chairman, Giles Clarke, who signed a controversial, five-year sponsorship deal worth $100 million (about £70.2 million) with Mr Stanford in a glitzy ceremony at Lord’s last summer.

The SEC's inquiry into the improbably high rates of return on Mr Stanford's investment products had been running since last July, but according to Bloomberg news agency the turning point came last week, when a lawyer for Stanford International Bank (SIB) in Antigua informed the SEC that he wanted to withdraw all the evidence he had given so far.

The attorney's withdrawal is a massive red flag that screams fraud," said Peter Henning, who teaches criminal and securities law at Wayne State University in Detroit.

"If the SEC hadn't turned up the heat by that point, it did then."

Bloomberg said that a source familiar with the case named the lawyer as Thomas Sjoblom , of Proskauer Rose LLP. Mr Sjoblom is an expert in financial fraud who previously spent 20 years working for the SEC before joining Proskauer Rose in 1999.

He has refused to comment, and Brian Bertsch, Mr Stanford's spokesman, was last night referring all questions about the case to the SEC. Mr Stanford has denied any wrongdoing.

Last night, as investors arrived in Antigua to rap on the door of SIB demanding to know the whereabouts of at least $8bn, Mr Stanford’s own whereabouts were not immediately known. A dual US-Antiguan citizen, he reportedly spends fewer than 90 days a year in the United States for tax purposes, and has a number of homes from Antigua to St Croix in the US Virgin Islands and Miami. He was given a Commonwealth knighthood by Antigua.

Details were emerging today of how he has courted US Congressmen with donations and trips to the Caribbean, in an apparent attempt to minimise his tax liabilities. He has also been photographed with President Obama.

Yesterday a judge in Detroit froze Mr Stanford’s estimated $2.2 billion fortune, as well as the assets of two other top executives, and US marshals raided the Houston headquarters and offices in Memphis and Tupelo of the privately-owned parent company, Stanford Financial Group, which says it manages more than $50 billion in assets.

Bank regulators in Panama meanwhile said they had taken over Stanford Bank (Panama) after anxious investors launched a run on the bank.

LOS ANGELES: DreamWorks SKG has a new home, again.

DreamWorks and Walt Disney Studios said Monday that they had reached an agreement under which Disney will distribute approximately six films a year for the boutique studio, which is owned by Steven Spielberg and his partner, Stacey Snider.

The agreement came after a four-month-old distribution deal between DreamWorks and Universal Pictures fell apart last week. That deal had followed the departure of DreamWorks' principals from Paramount Pictures last year, amid disputes about the division of authority and the assignment of credit for DreamWorks films.

Monday's announcement called the Disney deal an "exclusive, long-term distribution arrangement," but provided few details. The first DreamWorks film will be distributed by Disney's Touchstone Pictures label in 2010, the companies said.

In announcing the deal, Robert Iger, chief executive of the Walt Disney Company, said: "We are tremendously pleased to join forces with Steven Spielberg, whose artistic vision and commitment to quality filmmaking are legendary."

Miniaturization of circuits and displays could lead to televisions shrunk into contact lenses and being powered by body heat, according to British futurologist Ian Pearson.

Channels could be changed using voice commands or gestures, Pearson told The Daily Mail. "You will just pop it into your eye in the morning and take it out at the end of the day," he said.

Pearson's predictions are in contrast to how consumer electronics companies have been pushing bigger TVs. In the last few years, advances in plasma and LCD panel technologies along with falling prices have made it easy to buy TVs with up to 100-inches in screen size.

But Pearson believes that trend will change and contact lenses that double up as personal TV sets could be reality within the next ten years.

Already scientists have taken the first steps towards making contact lenses more powerful and versatile, says LiveScience. Digital contact lenses that can zoom in on objects and display related information have been tested on rabbits for up to 20 minutes. Digital and programmable contact lenses will be the next big step, say futurists like Pearson.

Another possibility to advance your pleasure while watching Temptation Island or Flavor of Love? digital tattoos that could let users feel the emotions of the actors on the show by provoking similar impulses in their bodies.

IBM is offering its laid off employees in North America a chance to take a job with the company in India, Nigeria, Russia or other countries through Project Match, a media report said.

Citing an internal company document CNN said its Project Match will help interested workers whose jobs are on the chopping block to "identify potential opportunities in growth markets and facilitate consideration by hiring managers in those markets."

The company also will help with moving costs and provide visa assistance, it says.

Other countries with IBM opportunities include Argentina, Brazil, China, Czech Republic, Hungary, Mexico, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Turkey and United Arab Emirates, according to the document.

Only "satisfactory performers" who are "willing to work on local terms and conditions" should pursue the jobs, the document says.

CNN said IBM would not immediately confirm if it means that the workers would be paid local wages and would be subject to local labour laws.

A spokesman for Alliance at IBM, a workers' group that is affiliated with the Communications Workers of America but does not have official union status at IBM, slammed the initiative.

"IBM not only is offshoring its work to low-cost countries, now IBM wants employees to offshore themselves," spokesman Lee Conrad told CNN. "At a time of rising unemployment IBM should be looking to keep both the work and the workers in the United States."

New York based IBM has confirmed recent layoffs but has not provided any specifics on the number of people affected. Conrad said IBM has laid off more than 4,000 workers in the US since the beginning of the year, but called that "a conservative number."

"This is unacceptable to the Alliance and we are pursuing this by asking our members and all IBM employees to contact their political representatives to demand an accounting and transparency in job cuts and offshoring from IBM," Conrad said.