Pocket PC eBooks Watch - eBook and beyond  
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DRM RIP
ZDNet Thinks that DRM Devices are CRAP
Berlind suggests that we boycott all of these devices containing DRM that limit our use of music. While that may be very hard to do since most devices are DRM enabled, I would suggest a different approach to this boycott.
* Do not purchase any DRM media. Buy music from the store and rip the CDs yourself. You will be able to put them on any device you want.
* Purchase only devices that support UMS. Devices that are UMS require no drivers and do not lock you into one computer or one operating system. Be wary of Microsoft MTP and Apple devices that lock you into one operating system or one computer.

posted by Jerry permanent link

  3/30/2006

the Analog HOLE
DRM and the Myth of the Analog Hole
Art Grimm writes "Movie studios want to punish legitimate customers for legally purchasing content, while the real pirates go right on stealing. ZDNet's George Ou writes: "There seems to be a persistent myth floating around the board rooms of the movie companies and Congress that analog content is the boogie man of music and video piracy. In fact, they're so paranoid about it that they're considering a mechanism called ICT (Image Constraint Token) that punishes law-abiding customers for content that they legally purchased. But ironically, the real content pirates who make millions of bootleg movies have no intention of ever taking advantage of the so called "analog hole" because that is the slowest and lowest quality method of stealing content.""

This is what is happening to eBook also, most pirates do scan printed book and distribute them to P2P access. The loss belong to honest/paying customers

posted by Jerry permanent link

Can't Hear Ya!
Attorneys: iPod maximum volume update not good enough
Following Apple’s announcement today of an iPod update to limit volume levels, attorneys involved in a class-action lawsuit over iPod hearing loss have released a statement, saying that they “lauded Apple’s decision to provide a way to limit the volume of the popular iPod devices, but said the company’s actions fall far short.”

posted by Jerry permanent link

  3/22/2006

French Toasted
Apple: French law will result in 'state-sponsored piracy
pple said on Tuesday that France’s proposed music interoperability bill would result in “state-sponsored piracy.” An Apple representative said the law—which would force the company to open its FairPlay DRM—is likely to cause digital music sales to steeply decline, but that iPod sales might actually increase. “The French implementation of the EU Copyright Directive will result in state-sponsored piracy,” said Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris. “If this happens, legal music sales will plummet just when legitimate alternatives to piracy are winning over customers… iPod sales will likely increase as users freely upload their iPods with ‘interoperable’ music which cannot be adequately protected,” Kerris said. “Free movies for iPods should not be far behind.”

posted by Jerry permanent link

  3/18/2006

Live Longer without DRM
MP3 Insider: The truth about your battery life
Even the iPod, playing back only FairPlay AAC tracks, underperformed MP3s by about 8 percent. What I'm saying is that while battery life may not be a critical issue today, as it was when one of the original hard drive players--the Creative Nomad Jukebox--lasted a pathetic 4 hours running on four AA nickel-metal-hydride rechargeables (and much worse on alkalines), the industry needs to include battery specs for DRM audio tracks or the tracks we're buying or subscribing. Yet, here's another reason why we should still be ripping our music in MP3: better battery life, the most obvious reason being universal device compatibility.

posted by Jerry permanent link

  3/09/2006

SlingBoxed
What's Happening with SlingPlayer for Windows Mobile?
Recently we had posted the news story "The Carriers have Once Again Pulled Out Their Hatchets, the Victim This Time is Sling Media," which talked about the carriers planning to deny Sling Media the permission to operate its video playback service over the cellular network. Thanks to an email note from Jeremy Toeman, VP for Market Development at Sling Media, we are happy to clarify that the SlingPlayer Windows Mobile Version is on track for Q1 2006 launch and it will be available as a direct download for the Slingbox customers. The customers will be able to watch the recorded programs over the carrier network without any restriction. Sling Media is also trying to partner with the carriers to offer joint service plans and that is the service that the carriers haven't cleared, and that is what the original news story was talking about."

posted by Jerry permanent link

Amen
Pope gets new iPod nano with podcasts
A group of Vatican Radio employees gave Pope Benedict XVI a brand new iPod nano loaded with special Vatican Radio programming and classical music according to the Catholic News Service.

posted by Jerry permanent link

iPod Media
Japanese broadcasters turn to podcasting
Radio broadcasters in Japan are facing a decline in ratings due to fewer listeners, and are placing their hopes in podcasting to make uhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifp the difference. "Podcasts can capture narrower sectors of the audience that cannot be reached by the radio," Yukihiro Okada, head of program production at FM Inter-Wave said.

posted by Jerry permanent link

Great Devices
Elgato Systems EyeTV 2 Digital TV Recording Software
Pros: A powerful but elegantly simple piece of Macintosh software that provides TiVo-like TV directory, recording, and live-action pause/rewind/fast-forward features, plus a one-click or checkmarked Export to iPod feature. Easy to install and reasonably priced for stand-alone purchase.

posted by Jerry permanent link

iTune$ Rock$
iTunes $9.99 Multi-Pass: Just What Videos Needed
This morning brought a very pleasant surprise for fans of two Comedy Central shows - and those hoping to see Apple’s iTunes Music Store become an even bigger force in digital downloads. Along with the addition of popular political news show parodies The Daily Show and The Colbert Report to iTunes, Apple unveiled Multi-Pass, a $9.99 subscription package that provides 16 episode downloads for a single low price. Individual episodes can still be purchased for $1.99.
...That aside, our biggest questions at this point are these: how widespread will Multi-Pass become, and will Apple develop a similarly reasonable bulk purchase model for older videos? At the moment, it’s hard to tell - or even make an educated guess - whether subscriptions to The Daily Show or The Colbert Report are representative of an emerging iTunes video trend, or just a test of a specific genre of TV content. After all, topical news programs - even comedy ones - might not be assumed to have the same shelf life as, say, episodes of the A-Team. Who would pay, goes the argument, for days- or weeks-old news? It’s conceivable that Multi-Pass is destined only for this sort of content - that which has lots of value each day it’s downloaded, but little value thereafter.

posted by Jerry permanent link

  3/08/2006

iTune$ economy
iTunes enable restricted access to some listed podcasts
The podcast changes would presumably allow anhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gify content creator to offer member-only content via iTunes service. While the listing of restricted content is a departure from the current listing of freely available podcasts, Apple's move will help drive traffic to the iTunes Music Store and help it maintain a comprehensive listing of all podcast content.
The report says that the change is expected to go live on Monday and will seamless enable access to podcasts to members of Rush 24/7 as well as allow users to store their name/password for future access. RUSH 24/7 currently charges $50 for access to content for one year or monthly membership for $7 per month.

posted by Jerry permanent link

DVD2iPod
Putting Your DVDs on a Video iPod
Sure, you could fill your video iPod with episodes of Knight Rider from iTunes for $2 a pop. Or you could save some cash - and your soul - and fill it with files you convert from your DVD collection using freely available software. Problem is, you'd have to break the law. Though it's theoretically OK to back up DVDs for personal use, it's illegal to override commercial copy protection, a necessary step in the process. Proceed at your own risk.

posted by Jerry permanent link

  3/05/2006

Broken Record
Broken iPods all too common
...But you're not ready to give up. On the Apple site, there's a form you can
fill out to send the iPod back to Apple and get it fixed. But you do a
double-take when you see the price. Apple wants $250, plus tax, to fix your
iPod. There is no mistaking the message: Apple has zero interest in fixing
a machine it was quite happy to sell you not so long ago.
Now you're reeling. You're furious. But what choice do you have? You can't
turn to a competitor's product, not if you want to keep using Apple's
proprietary iTunes software, where you've stored all the music you love,
including songs purchased directly from the iTunes Music Store, which
you'll lose if you leave the iTunes environment. So you grit your teeth and
buy a new iPod. Of course since it's a newer machine, it has that cool
video capability. But you're still angry.

posted by Jerry permanent link