Pocket PC eBooks Watch - eBook and beyond

2011-08-27T22:42:00.003-07:00

Follow @jerryjsj for news on new media and ebooks.

2011-08-27T22:42:00.001-07:00

The way Barnes and Noble kill Fictionwise slowly and painfully shows: any DRM is an unfair practice for honest ebook buyers.

2009-08-24T15:20:00.000-07:00

The Lost Symbol [Available: Sep 15, 2009]

The wait is almost over! After 6 years, the highly anticipated follow-up to The Da Vinci Code, one of the most thrilling bestsellers of all time, is finally available to pre-order. Infused with history, codes, and intrigue, the book's narrative takes place in a 12-hour period in which Robert Langdon careens through a masterful and exhilarating adventure.

2008-10-14T04:14:00.001-07:00

My new reading list, please visit, it includes update on ebooks Watch

NEW Jerry's Reader List Watch

2008-05-02T08:35:00.001-07:00

Marshall University Challenges RIAA
Marshall University, in Huntington, West Virginia, has become just the second US college or university to show the moxie to stand up for its students instead of instantly caving in to RIAA extortion."

2008-05-02T08:32:00.000-07:00

You Know Who Dept.
ISP Sued By Irish RIAA
"An ISP in Ireland has been sued by the Big Four record labels because its subscribers have engaged in P2P sharing of the record companies' song files. The record companies claim the ISP should be buying Audible Magic's CopySense, the software being peddled by the RIAA's expert witness, which supposedly would filter out copyright infringement. Of course, not everyone agrees."

2008-05-02T08:31:00.000-07:00

MScrew
MS locks ex-MSN Music users out of purchases
Microsoft late yesterday stirred controversy by telling former customers of its shuttered MSN Music service that it will shut down its license activation system for the service by the end of August.

2008-02-20T17:49:00.000-08:00

DVD Jon!
Hacker breaks link between iTunes and the iPod
A notorious Norwegian hacker known as DVD Jon is preparing for another run-in with the music industry after he released software that lets iPod owners copy music and videos bought from iTunes and play it on other devices.
The program allows people to drag and drop songs from iTunes into a folder on their desktop, which in turn copies the files to other devices such as mobile phones and games consoles via the web.
In doing so, the software breaks the copy protection - known as 'digital rights management' or DRM - that is built into all music that is bought from iTunes. Music bought from iTunes can be played only on the iPod.

2008-01-28T10:44:00.000-08:00

From Peanut Press - Palm Reader - eReader to Wise move
Fictionwise Acquires Peanut Press (eReader)
Fictionwise, an independent eBook retailer, announced this week that it has acquired the eReader.com eBook retail business unit of mobile content distributor Motricity.
"With this acquisition, Fictionwise breaks into the very top ranks of the eBook retail market. Synergies between our business units will open the door to some very interesting developments for our customers in the coming months," said Fictionwise co-founder Steve Pendergrast.

2008-01-28T10:34:00.000-08:00

iPhone Unlock

Free Your iPhone Using a SIM Unlock Card
This new device from Brando claims to have the ability to unlock your iPhone on the SIM level by attaching to the card. It will work with any firmware, but keep in mind that activation is required. So, v1.1.2 is a go, but not v1.1.3 (just yet). Plus, it is a good deal at only $30.

2008-01-28T10:33:00.000-08:00

Balance of Power
Amazon MP3 Service Going Global; Epic iTunes Battle on the Horizon
Amazon's digital music catalogue is all set to go global, and although a launch date has not yet been settled, it shall hit sometime this year. Given Amazon MP3 offers DRM-free tracks, which are generally cheaper than iTunes limited, equivalent offerings, we cannot help but think an epic battle between the big As is all set to take off.

2008-01-28T10:32:00.001-08:00

Stupid Rules
Patent granted on smartphones, everyone sued
What would you do if the US patent office gave you the go-ahead on a far-reaching, non-specific application filed for a "mobile entertainment and communication device"? If your answer was that you would immediately draw up lawsuits against almost every major electronics manufacturer that even looked at a smartphone funny, you get a cookie. Yes folks, as impossible as it is to believe, the holders of the aforementioned patent have just sued Apple, Nokia, RIM, Sprint, AT&T, HP, Motorola, Helio, HTC, Sony Ericsson, UTStarcomm, and Samsung... amongst others. So eager was this company to sue, in fact, that legal papers were filed a day before the patent was granted, and subsequently had to re-submitted. The real sucker-punch here is that the patent simply combines a list of prior technologies jumbled into one product, a practice which has recently been ruled against by the Supreme Court. Still, we doubt it will stop the holders from trying to nab a few dollars in settlements, staying the work of real innovators, and generally making a mockery of our patent system. Bravo!

2008-01-28T10:29:00.000-08:00

DRM That I Promote Dept.
Will Digital Watermarking Rise From DRM's Ashes?
Okay, so DRM is dead dead dead. Hurray, right? Well, Wired says it's simply being swapped out for digital watermarking, which will lay out breads crumbs for the labels to follow as songs make their way across P2P networks, and the bundle of evidence will allow them to place pressure on ISPs to engage in large-scale network filtering.
Right now, though, only two labels are watermarking tracks—Universal and Sony BMG. EMI and Warner aren't lacing their files yet, but it's a definite future possibility, and the watermarks could be used in conjunction with a filtering plan like AT&T's, which was recently confirmed by an AT&T exec.

2008-01-28T10:28:00.000-08:00

Lastly
Last.FM on Windows Mobile
"If you are a last.fm user then this application which is currently in development could be of interest to you. Last.fm Mobile in it's Pocket PC version has scrobbling and radio functionality, and the smartphone version is limited to scrobbling from Windows Media Player - but it works perfectly. If you have a Windows Mobile device and a Last.fm profile, you can grab the software from the Last.fm Mobile Forum"

2008-01-28T10:26:00.000-08:00

Real eMags
Zinio for iPhone
Carrying your Zinio mag in your iPod Touch or iPhone, and sharing them with your friends.

2008-01-28T10:21:00.000-08:00

QuickTrash
Qtrax Free music downloads site in chaos as record giants pull out
Music fans around the world faced confusion today as it was announced they would be able to download unlimited, free songs without breaking the law.
A revamped online file-sharing service had vowed to offer a catalogue of 30million free songs that are compatible with iPods, but record labels have denied they had granted permission to share the songs.

2008-01-05T02:20:00.000-08:00

Slashdot:
RIAA Now Filing Suits Against Consumers Who Rip CDs
With this past week's announcement by Warner to release its entire catalog to Amazon in MP3 format with no Digital Rights Management, you would think that the organization that represents them, The RIAA, would begin changing its tune. Instead, they are pressing on in their campaign against consumers by suing individuals who merely rip CDs they've purchased legally.

2008-01-05T02:19:00.001-08:00

eBooks everything
Converting Google Book PDFs to Actual Books
PublicDomainReprints.org allows you to paste in a book URL from the Google Books program – at least those books in the public domain, which Google offers as full PDFs – to then order them via print-on-demand service Lulu.com. (To find just public domain books on Google Book Search, check the “Full view” option on the Advanced Book Search page.) Other than Google Bo

2008-01-05T02:15:00.000-08:00

Steve Jobs' Prophecy Dept:
DRM Officially Dead: Last Major Label Sony BMG Plans to Finally Drop DRM
It's over. The last major label to hold out on selling DRM-free MP3s, Sony BMG, is "finalizing plans" to sell music not locked down with DRM. It'll be available sometime in the first quarter, apparently in time to get in on Amazon and Pepsi's 1 billion song giveaway, which now looks like it'll have tracks from every major label.

2008-01-05T02:08:00.000-08:00

Top Story of 2007:

1. Death of Music DRM
2. iPhone
3. More mainstream book release in form of ebooks
4. Kindle
5. RIAA's Greeds continueto Claim Ripping CDs is Illegal

2007-11-19T03:37:00.000-08:00

eBook Trends
Newsweek Cover Story: The Future of Reading
More than just an ebook like Sony’s Reader, Kindle is a service extension of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ digital bookstore for the planet dream. The $399 Kindle can store hundreds of books, change font sizes, search and it has a wireless broadband connection for downloading, managing preferences and recommendations from the Amazon engine and searching the Web.

2007-10-04T14:14:00.000-07:00

Pirates at the Gates
Bill Gates: Music Thief
Q: What's the coolest thing about the upgraded Zune?
A: Look at this thing! (Holds up a Zune 8) Three or four years ago there was nothing like this. This is cool as heck. I'm finding music I haven't seen in 20 years. Hey, the Lovin' Spoonful? They're in this thing. I find one of their songs. I send it to friends I had an apartment with, it was actually 30 years ago. I can send it out to them and say, "Remember when we listened to this?" It's amazing.

2007-10-03T09:17:00.000-07:00

The Age of Turbulence
eBook by Alan Greenspan
The Age of Turbulence is Alan Greenspan's incomparable reckoning with the nature of this new world--how we got here, what we're living through, and what lies over the horizon, for good and for ill-channeled through his own experiences working in the command room of the global economy for longer and with greater effect than any other single living figure. He begins his account on that September 11th morning, but then leaps back to his childhood, and follows the arc of his remarkable life's journey through to his more than 18-year tenure as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, from 1987 to 2006, during a time of transforming change. Alan Greenspan shares the story of his life first simply with an eye toward doing justice to the extraordinary amount of history he has experienced and shaped. But his other goal is to draw readers along the same learning curve he followed, so they accrue a grasp of his own understanding of the underlying dynamics that drive world events. In the second half of the book, having brought us to the present and armed us with the conceptual tools to follow him forward, Dr. Greenspan embarks on a magnificent tour de horizon of the global economy. He reveals the universals of economic growth, delves into the specific facts on the ground in each of the major countries and regions of the world, and explains what the trend-lines of globalization are from here. The distillation of a life's worth of wisdom and insight into an elegant expression of a coherent worldview, The Age of Turbulence will stand as Alan Greenspan's personal and intellectual legacy.

2007-10-01T10:08:00.000-07:00

Radio Ahead
Radiohead says name your price
In a bold challenge to the music industry's traditional business model, the UK band Radiohead has told fans they can pre-order a digital download of its new album and pay whatever they want.
Technically that means people could opt to pay nothing - or next to nothing - for the album.
In Rainbows, the band's seventh studio album, is due out on October 10 and can only be ordered through the band's inrainbows.com website.

2007-09-17T10:11:00.000-07:00

iLounge Review
Apple iPod touch (8GB/16GB) gets B-
...That said, we cannot in good conscience generally recommend the iPod touch to all of our readers. The essential elements of the “true video iPod” we and others have been waiting for are obvious—an iPhone-matching screen with iPod classic-matching capacity and battery life—but between its so-so screen, limited storage and below-nano battery life, iPod touch doesn’t equal or surpass the best portable products Apple has released this year. If you need similar storage space and don’t need a big video screen, get an iPod nano. If audio quality and capacity are important to you, buy an iPod classic. And if you’re a video fan, consider an iPhone if it’s available in your country, or save your money. Wait until Apple (or someone else) gets the “true video iPod” formula right. We sincerely hope that it will be sooner rather than later.

2007-09-10T23:08:00.001-07:00

Free Your Music
How To Break iTunes DRM
If you’ve been looking for a way (that actually works) to liberate your iTunes music from its DRM prison, then this page is for you.
other links:
Mod Strips iTunes' DRM Protections
and
Remove the FairPlay DRM from Your iTunes Songs

2007-09-07T02:35:00.000-07:00

To all iPhone customers:

I have received hundreds of emails from iPhone customers who are upset about Apple dropping the price of iPhone by $200 two months after it went on sale. After reading every one of these emails, I have some observations and conclusions.

First, I am sure that we are making the correct decision to lower the price of the 8GB iPhone from $599 to $399, and that now is the right time to do it. iPhone is a breakthrough product, and we have the chance to 'go for it' this holiday season. iPhone is so far ahead of the competition, and now it will be affordable by even more customers. It benefits both Apple and every iPhone user to get as many new customers as possible in the iPhone 'tent'. We strongly believe the $399 price will help us do just that this holiday season.

Second, being in technology for 30+ years I can attest to the fact that the technology road is bumpy. There is always change and improvement, and there is always someone who bought a product before a particular cutoff date and misses the new price or the new operating system or the new whatever. This is life in the technology lane. If you always wait for the next price cut or to buy the new improved model, you'll never buy any technology product because there is always something better and less expensive on the horizon. The good news is that if you buy products from companies that support them well, like Apple tries to do, you will receive years of useful and satisfying service from them even as newer models are introduced.

Third, even though we are making the right decision to lower the price of iPhone, and even though the technology road is bumpy, we need to do a better job taking care of our early iPhone customers as we aggressively go after new ones with a lower price. Our early customers trusted us, and we must live up to that trust with our actions in moments like these.

Therefore, we have decided to offer every iPhone customer who purchased an iPhone from either Apple or AT&T, and who is not receiving a rebate or any other consideration, a $100 store credit towards the purchase of any product at an Apple Retail Store or the Apple Online Store. Details are still being worked out and will be posted on Apple's website next week. Stay tuned.

We want to do the right thing for our valued iPhone customers. We apologize for disappointing some of you, and we are doing our best to live up to your high expectations of Apple.

Steve Jobs
Apple CEO

2007-09-05T12:59:00.000-07:00

Apple announces major updates to iPod family, cuts iPhone price

2007-08-25T11:00:00.000-07:00

iPhone HW Cracked
NJ Teen Unlocks IPhone From AT&T Network
A 17-year-old hacker has broken the lock that ties Apple's iPhone to AT&T's wireless network, freeing the most hyped cell phone ever for use on the networks of other carriers, including overseas ones.
The hack, which Hotz posted Thursday to his blog, is complicated and requires skill with both soldering and software. It takes him about two hours to perform. Since the details are public, it seems likely that a small industry may spring up to buy U.S. iPhones, unlock them and send them overseas.

2007-08-23T08:24:00.000-07:00

Announcement from Fictionwise
A major problem occurred with the Mobipocket DRM server at about 6:30 PM Eastern Time, Wednesday, August 15. Engineers at Mobipocket.com have informed us that they hope to be back online sometime this week, August 23 or 24. We have switched, where possible, all Secure Mobipocket files purchased during the downtime to an alternative DRM provider, Content Reserve. We have also taken all titles that could not be switched offline in Mobipocket format until the problem is resolved.

2007-08-17T19:41:00.000-07:00

I've been advocating for this for a looong time dept. DRM level 2
Watermarking to Replace DRM?
"News.com has an article on the announcement of Microsoft and Universal to introduce watermarking technology into audio files. The technology could serve several purposes including tracking file sharing statistics and inserting advertisements into audio tracks. The article goes on to suggest that watermarking could possibly replace DRM in the near future."

this should be applied to ebook and emag too.

2007-08-13T02:23:00.000-07:00

eBook reader for the iPhone released
Books.app is a new, basic eBook reader binary for the iPhone that requires books to be transferred to the device via the iPHUC tool. The application reads HTML and text files stored in a media/eBooks folder, and is smart enough to enter subdirectories...

2007-07-21T22:08:00.000-07:00

Another nice browser for bandwith saver
Opera Mini 4.0
"When surfing with Opera Mini, Web pages are optimized and compressed before being sent to your phone. The data transferred to your phone is significantly reduced, making mobile surfing cheaper."

2007-07-21T22:04:00.000-07:00

Saving Bandwith with your PDA Dept.
Go to http://mobile.google.com on your mobile device's web browser. Then choose 'search' - 'setting/option' - choose let google reformat the website for your mobile device.
The result of ANY site will be reformated (inlude creating smaller jpg, stripping flash, converting multiple column into single column) to your PDA screen size.

Amazing.

thanks Google

2007-07-21T22:01:00.000-07:00

Organize Religion Bashing
God is not great
eBook by Christopher Hitchens
In the tradition of Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian and Sam Harris's recent bestseller, The End of Faith, Christopher Hitchens makes the ultimate case against religion. With a close and erudite reading of the major religious texts, he documents the ways in which religion is a man-made wish, a cause of dangerous sexual repression, and a distortion of our origins in the cosmos. With eloquent clarity, Hitchens frames the argument for a more secular life based on science and reason, in which hell is replaced by the Hubble Telescope's awesome view of the universe, and Moses and the burning bush give way to the beauty and symmetry of the double helix.

2007-07-07T20:33:00.000-07:00

Brief History of Woody's Universe
Mere Anarchy by Woody Allen
"I awoke Friday, and because the universe is expanding it took me longer than usual to find my robe,"

2007-07-07T20:30:00.000-07:00

Reincarnation
AllofMP3 Shuts Down, Reopens As MP3Sparks.com
The controversial Russian music download site AllofMP3.com has closed its doors. The music service, which sold songs for much less than other online services (thanks to a weird loophole in Russian law) has been the target of U.S. ire for some time.
AllofMP3 claimed it was the second largest online music retailer, trailing only Apple’s iTunes service.
But before the RIAA execs start dancing in the streets and users shed tears in half consumed pints, consider the old adage: if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck… it’s probably AllofMP3 at the new domain MP3Sparks.com.

2007-06-27T08:59:00.000-07:00

iWant
iPhone Guided Tour
Hush, Steve Ballmer is waiting in line to buy iPhone.

2007-06-13T12:22:00.000-07:00

Bebye Microsoft
Apple extends iTunes to Bebo social network
Apple today announced a deal that will expand its popular iTunes music service into the realm of social networking. The company on Wednesday announced a deal to embed its iTunes music download service into the Bebo website, according to The Financial Times. Initially, the deal will be limited to UK and Ireland, but could eventually extend to its entire user base of 33 million users.

2007-05-30T07:52:00.000-07:00

Balmer's I Hate This Dept: Education For Free
Apple offers free iTunes U content
Apple has announced the launch of iTunes U, a new dedicated area of the iTunes Store offering free content from top US colleges and universities, including Stanford, UC Berkley, Duke, and MIT. The content includes course lectures, language lessons, lab demonstrations, sports highlights, and campus tours. “iTunes U makes it easy for anyone to access amazing educational material from many of the country’s most respected colleges and universities,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of iTunes. “Education is a lifelong pursuit and we’re pleased to give everyone the ability to download lectures, speeches and other academic content for free.”

2007-05-30T07:43:00.000-07:00

It's Coming
Apple launches iTunes 7.2 & iTunes Plus, DRM-free music
Following the early morning release of iTunes 7.2, Apple on Wednesday launched iTunes Plus, which brings support for new DRM-free music tracks featuring high quality 256 kbps AAC encoding for higher audio quality. The new higher-quality, DRM-free songs are available immediately for $1.29 per song. iTunes Plus currently includes EMI's digital catalog of outstanding recordings, including singles and albums from Coldplay, The Rolling Stones, Norah Jones, Frank Sinatra, Joss Stone, Pink Floyd, John Coltrane and more than a dozen of Paul McCartney's classic albums available on iTunes for the first time.

2007-05-16T12:46:00.000-07:00

Thumbs Up
Amazon.com to Launch DRM-Free MP3 Music Download Store
May 16, 2007--Amazon.com today announced it will launch a digital music store later this year offering millions of songs in the DRM-free MP3 format from more than 12,000 record labels. EMI Music's digital catalog is the latest addition to the store. Every song and album in the Amazon.com digital music store will be available exclusively in the MP3 format without digital rights management (DRM) software. Amazon's DRM-free MP3s will free customers to play their music on virtually any of their personal devices -- including PCs, Macs, iPods, Zunes, Zens -- and to burn songs to CDs for personal use.
"Our MP3-only strategy means all the music that customers buy on Amazon is always DRM-free and plays on any device," said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com founder and CEO. "We're excited to have EMI joining us in this effort and look forward to offering our customers MP3s from amazing artists like Coldplay, Norah Jones and Joss Stone."

2007-04-07T19:33:00.000-07:00

Balmer's Blunder
Dvorak: Microsoft decides to change their tune (har, har) on DRM!
Microsoft’s apparent change of heart on selling DRM-free music came in response to Apple’s deal earlier in the week to sell unprotected content from recording company EMI Group PLC. The company previously claimed that DRM was necessary for current and emerging digital media business models.

2007-04-07T07:56:00.000-07:00

Pocket PC AAC
Listen to iTunes Music on Windows Mobile Smartphones
At the CTIA Wireless show this week Avvenu introduced a beta of a new audio player for Windows Mobile devices. With the Avvenu Music Player users of the company's remote access and file sharing service can share music from their iTunes playlists and listen to tracks from the Apple music service on smartphones like the Palm Treo 750 and 700w, Motorola Q and Samsung Blackjack.
According to the company, the web-based solution enables users to listen to songs from their music collection, as long as it’s not DRM protected (bought from Apple's iTunes store), on their smartphone if they are within range of wireless service. And, keep in mind, as with any content service, data charges from your carrier apply.
The player recognizes iTunes playlists, artist names, album names, song names and musical genres. In the beta users can share up to 250 songs with friends and remotely listen to music even when their PC is turned off. It supports the MP3, AAC and WMA audio-file formats.

2007-04-07T07:50:00.000-07:00

WMA Dying Zune too
Apple-backed AAC format beating Microsoft’s proprietary WMA in music standards war
Apple's deal with EMI to sell DRM-free, high-quality music "marks a fundamental change in the digital music landscape, a feat Apple is pulling off with increasing regularity of late. If I were an employee of Microsoft and involved with its confusing digital-music efforts, built around its highly DRM-protected WMA format, I'd be sweating right now," Arik Hesseldahl writes for BusinessWeek.
Hesseldahl writes, "The real target is Microsoft. What we now have is a good old-fashioned standards war heating up, and it is pitting the old foes Apple and Microsoft against each other once again. Saying Apple has the upper hand is giving Microsoft more credit than it deserves... All of those companies that have been 'partners' of Microsoft—Samsung, Creative, Archos, and SanDisk, to name a few—have been treated pretty poorly by Redmond recently... Those partners were all left holding the bag as Microsoft walked away from PlaysForSure, when it launched the Zune and the companion Zune Marketplace... The next generation of non-Apple MP3 players heading to market will be notable for two things: AAC support, and maybe, just maybe, a lack of WMA support."

2007-04-07T07:48:00.000-07:00

iSave
iPod Saves Soldier's Life.
...The insurgent was killed and Kevin was hit in the left chest where his IPod was in his jacket pocket. It slowed the bullet down enough that it did not completely penetrate his body armor. Fortunately, Kevin suffered no wound.

2007-04-02T20:16:00.000-07:00

Not A Fool Belives
Apple Unveils Higher Quality DRM-Free Music on the iTunes Store
Apple® today announced that EMI Music’s entire digital catalog of music will be available for purchase DRM-free (without digital rights management) from the iTunes® Store (www.itunes.com) worldwide in May. DRM-free tracks from EMI will be offered at higher quality 256 kbps AAC encoding, resulting in audio quality indistinguishable from the original recording, for just $1.29 per song. In addition, iTunes customers will be able to easily upgrade their entire library of all previously purchased EMI content to the higher quality DRM-free versions for just 30 cents a song. iTunes will continue to offer its entire catalog, currently over five million songs, in the same versions as today—128 kbps AAC encoding with DRM—at the same price of 99 cents per song, alongside DRM-free higher quality versions when available.
“We are going to give iTunes customers a choice—the current versions of our songs for the same 99 cent price, or new DRM-free versions of the same songs with even higher audio quality and the security of interoperability for just 30 cents more,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We think our customers are going to love this, and we expect to offer more than half of the songs on iTunes in DRM-free versions by the end of this year.”
iTunes will also offer customers a simple, one-click option to easily upgrade their entire library of all previously purchased EMI content to the higher quality DRM-free format for 30 cents a song. All EMI music videos will also be available in DRM-free format with no change in price.

2007-03-29T09:50:00.000-07:00

Have Try this?
WMAConvert Platinum
Easily convert DRM protected music files and various audio files to unprotected MP3, CD, iPod and other MP3 player file formats at high speed and CD quality- legally.

2007-03-29T09:48:00.000-07:00

Nice Move
iTunes Store gets ‘Complete My Album’ feature
Apple today announced Complete My Album, a new iTunes Store feature that allows customers who have purchased individual tracks on an album to buy the full album at a reduced price. “Complete My Album offers customers up to 180 days after first purchasing individual songs from any qualifying album to purchase the rest of that album at a reduced price,” explains Apple. “When users buy any song on iTunes the corresponding album will immediately appear on their personalized Complete My Album page with the reduced price listed. For example, a user who’s already purchased three 99 cent singles and decides to buy the corresponding $9.99 album would be able to download the remaining songs to complete the album for just $7.02, without having to buy the singles again.”

2007-03-23T08:21:00.000-07:00

No Surprise
RIAA Wins Worst Company In America 2007
The RIAA won The Consumerist's "Worst Company In America 2007" reader poll.
We predicted an RIAA landlslide, but they only managed a 53.8% majority over Halliburton's 46.2%
The message is clear. The internet cares deeply about being able to download music illegally.

2007-03-14T09:51:00.000-07:00

100% Rebate for limited time only

The Secret
eBook by Rhonda Byrne
Fragments of a Great Secret have been found in the oral traditions, in literature, in religions and philosophies throughout the centuries. For the first time, all the pieces of The Secret come together in an incredible revelation that will be life-transforming for all who experience it. In this book, you'll learn how to use The Secret in every aspect of your life--money, health, relationships, happiness, and in every interaction you have in the world. You'll begin to understand the hidden, untapped power that's within you, and this revelation can bring joy to every aspect of your life. The Secret contains wisdom from modern-day teachers--men and women who have used it to achieve health, wealth, and happiness. By applying the knowledge of The Secret, they bring to light compelling stories of eradicating disease, acquiring massive wealth, overcoming obstacles, and achieving what many would regard as impossible.

2007-02-24T18:42:00.000-08:00

March of Love
March Is Screw The RIAA Month; Count Me In
The folks over at the Gizmodo website have announced plans to try and get a month-long RIAA boycott off the ground; basically to show them that we (the people who buy the records they produce) aren’t too happy with the bad things they do.
A list that includes suing the pants off of innocent people for supposedly pirating music, trying to kill city-wide free WiFi projects, and for planning to leverage their position of power with music stores like iTunes and Zune Marketplace to get a cut off of each MP3 player sold; which is positively ridiculous, and practically robbery.
The “Boycott The RIAA In March” plan is, basically, to take the month of March off from buying music released by labels involved in the RIAA (and instead encourage you to buy their merchandise, see them in concert, etc.). I personally think this is a great idea, and I myself plan on taking part in this little endeavor.

2007-02-24T18:35:00.000-08:00

Let's Share
Not even music execs still think they can stop piracy.
Jobs puts his finger on DRM's crucial weakness by pointing out that "there are many smart people in the world, some with a lot of time on their hands, who love to discover such secrets and publish a way for everyone to get free (and stolen) music." Key2audio was cracked in a couple weeks, and the hack that broke it was basically a well-placed stroke with a Sharpie near the edge of the CD face. In the DRM arms race, the programmers who devise encryption schemes are outgunned by the code breakers at every step: the minute a new system goes public, an interconnected hive mind of thousands of hackers goes to work on it. Patching up the cracks gets expensive fast, and no business likes throwing good money after bad.

DRM is an especially unwise investment now because album sales are down overall, despite the enormous expansion of the online market...

2007-02-24T18:16:00.000-08:00

DRM Watch
Slashdot: DRM did itEric Flint, editor at Baen Publishing and an author himself, over at Baen's online SF magazine, Baen Universe. In it Flint argues that, far from curbing piracy of copyrighted materials, DRM actually causes it. Quoting: "Electronic copyright infringement is something that can only become an 'economic epidemic' under certain conditions. Any one of the following: 1) The products they want... are hard to find, and thus valuable. 2) The products they want are high-priced, so there's a fair amount of money to be saved by stealing them. 3) The legal products come with so many added-on nuisances that the illegal version is better to begin with. Those are the three conditions that will create widespread electronic copyright infringement, especially in combination. Why? Because they're the same three general conditions that create all large-scale smuggling enterprises. And... Guess what? It's precisely those three conditions that DRM creates in the first place. So far from being an impediment to so-called 'online piracy,' it's DRM itself that keeps fueling it and driving it forward."

2007-02-06T19:44:00.000-08:00

On DRM: Jobs 2 - Gates 0
Steve Jobs' Open Letter - No DRM in a Heartbeat

Steve Jobs
February 6, 2007

With the stunning global success of Apple’s iPod music player and iTunes online music store, some have called for Apple to “open” the digital rights management (DRM) system that Apple uses to protect its music against theft, so that music purchased from iTunes can be played on digital devices purchased from other companies, and protected music purchased from other online music stores can play on iPods. Let’s examine the current situation and how we got here, then look at three possible alternatives for the future.

To begin, it is useful to remember that all iPods play music that is free of any DRM and encoded in “open” licensable formats such as MP3 and AAC. iPod users can and do acquire their music from many sources, including CDs they own. Music on CDs can be easily imported into the freely-downloadable iTunes jukebox software which runs on both Macs and Windows PCs, and is automatically encoded into the open AAC or MP3 formats without any DRM. This music can be played on iPods or any other music players that play these open formats.

The rub comes from the music Apple sells on its online iTunes Store. Since Apple does not own or control any music itself, it must license the rights to distribute music from others, primarily the “big four” music companies: Universal, Sony BMG, Warner and EMI. These four companies control the distribution of over 70% of the world’s music. When Apple approached these companies to license their music to distribute legally over the Internet, they were extremely cautious and required Apple to protect their music from being illegally copied. The solution was to create a DRM system, which envelopes each song purchased from the iTunes store in special and secret software so that it cannot be played on unauthorized devices.

Apple was able to negotiate landmark usage rights at the time, which include allowing users to play their DRM protected music on up to 5 computers and on an unlimited number of iPods. Obtaining such rights from the music companies was unprecedented at the time, and even today is unmatched by most other digital music services. However, a key provision of our agreements with the music companies is that if our DRM system is compromised and their music becomes playable on unauthorized devices, we have only a small number of weeks to fix the problem or they can withdraw their entire music catalog from our iTunes store.

To prevent illegal copies, DRM systems must allow only authorized devices to play the protected music. If a copy of a DRM protected song is posted on the Internet, it should not be able to play on a downloader’s computer or portable music device. To achieve this, a DRM system employs secrets. There is no theory of protecting content other than keeping secrets. In other words, even if one uses the most sophisticated cryptographic locks to protect the actual music, one must still “hide” the keys which unlock the music on the user’s computer or portable music player. No one has ever implemented a DRM system that does not depend on such secrets for its operation.

The problem, of course, is that there are many smart people in the world, some with a lot of time on their hands, who love to discover such secrets and publish a way for everyone to get free (and stolen) music. They are often successful in doing just that, so any company trying to protect content using a DRM must frequently update it with new and harder to discover secrets. It is a cat-and-mouse game. Apple’s DRM system is called FairPlay. While we have had a few breaches in FairPlay, we have been able to successfully repair them through updating the iTunes store software, the iTunes jukebox software and software in the iPods themselves. So far we have met our commitments to the music companies to protect their music, and we have given users the most liberal usage rights available in the industry for legally downloaded music.

With this background, let’s now explore three different alternatives for the future.

The first alternative is to continue on the current course, with each manufacturer competing freely with their own “top to bottom” proprietary systems for selling, playing and protecting music. It is a very competitive market, with major global companies making large investments to develop new music players and online music stores. Apple, Microsoft and Sony all compete with proprietary systems. Music purchased from Microsoft’s Zune store will only play on Zune players; music purchased from Sony’s Connect store will only play on Sony’s players; and music purchased from Apple’s iTunes store will only play on iPods. This is the current state of affairs in the industry, and customers are being well served with a continuing stream of innovative products and a wide variety of choices.

Some have argued that once a consumer purchases a body of music from one of the proprietary music stores, they are forever locked into only using music players from that one company. Or, if they buy a specific player, they are locked into buying music only from that company’s music store. Is this true? Let’s look at the data for iPods and the iTunes store – they are the industry’s most popular products and we have accurate data for them. Through the end of 2006, customers purchased a total of 90 million iPods and 2 billion songs from the iTunes store. On average, that’s 22 songs purchased from the iTunes store for each iPod ever sold.

Today’s most popular iPod holds 1000 songs, and research tells us that the average iPod is nearly full. This means that only 22 out of 1000 songs, or under 3% of the music on the average iPod, is purchased from the iTunes store and protected with a DRM. The remaining 97% of the music is unprotected and playable on any player that can play the open formats. Its hard to believe that just 3% of the music on the average iPod is enough to lock users into buying only iPods in the future. And since 97% of the music on the average iPod was not purchased from the iTunes store, iPod users are clearly not locked into the iTunes store to acquire their music.

The second alternative is for Apple to license its FairPlay DRM technology to current and future competitors with the goal of achieving interoperability between different company’s players and music stores. On the surface, this seems like a good idea since it might offer customers increased choice now and in the future. And Apple might benefit by charging a small licensing fee for its FairPlay DRM. However, when we look a bit deeper, problems begin to emerge. The most serious problem is that licensing a DRM involves disclosing some of its secrets to many people in many companies, and history tells us that inevitably these secrets will leak. The Internet has made such leaks far more damaging, since a single leak can be spread worldwide in less than a minute. Such leaks can rapidly result in software programs available as free downloads on the Internet which will disable the DRM protection so that formerly protected songs can be played on unauthorized players.

An equally serious problem is how to quickly repair the damage caused by such a leak. A successful repair will likely involve enhancing the music store software, the music jukebox software, and the software in the players with new secrets, then transferring this updated software into the tens (or hundreds) of millions of Macs, Windows PCs and players already in use. This must all be done quickly and in a very coordinated way. Such an undertaking is very difficult when just one company controls all of the pieces. It is near impossible if multiple companies control separate pieces of the puzzle, and all of them must quickly act in concert to repair the damage from a leak.

Apple has concluded that if it licenses FairPlay to others, it can no longer guarantee to protect the music it licenses from the big four music companies. Perhaps this same conclusion contributed to Microsoft’s recent decision to switch their emphasis from an “open” model of licensing their DRM to others to a “closed” model of offering a proprietary music store, proprietary jukebox software and proprietary players.

The third alternative is to abolish DRMs entirely. Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat. If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store. Every iPod ever made will play this DRM-free music.

Why would the big four music companies agree to let Apple and others distribute their music without using DRM systems to protect it? The simplest answer is because DRMs haven’t worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy. Though the big four music companies require that all their music sold online be protected with DRMs, these same music companies continue to sell billions of CDs a year which contain completely unprotected music. That’s right! No DRM system was ever developed for the CD, so all the music distributed on CDs can be easily uploaded to the Internet, then (illegally) downloaded and played on any computer or player.

In 2006, under 2 billion DRM-protected songs were sold worldwide by online stores, while over 20 billion songs were sold completely DRM-free and unprotected on CDs by the music companies themselves. The music companies sell the vast majority of their music DRM-free, and show no signs of changing this behavior, since the overwhelming majority of their revenues depend on selling CDs which must play in CD players that support no DRM system.

So if the music companies are selling over 90 percent of their music DRM-free, what benefits do they get from selling the remaining small percentage of their music encumbered with a DRM system? There appear to be none. If anything, the technical expertise and overhead required to create, operate and update a DRM system has limited the number of participants selling DRM protected music. If such requirements were removed, the music industry might experience an influx of new companies willing to invest in innovative new stores and players. This can only be seen as a positive by the music companies.

Much of the concern over DRM systems has arisen in European countries. Perhaps those unhappy with the current situation should redirect their energies towards persuading the music companies to sell their music DRM-free. For Europeans, two and a half of the big four music companies are located right in their backyard. The largest, Universal, is 100% owned by Vivendi, a French company. EMI is a British company, and Sony BMG is 50% owned by Bertelsmann, a German company. Convincing them to license their music to Apple and others DRM-free will create a truly interoperable music marketplace. Apple will embrace this wholeheartedly.

2007-01-24T07:03:00.000-08:00

Light at the end of a Tunnel Dept.
Record Labels Contemplate Unrestricted Digital Music
As even digital music revenue growth falters because of rampant file-sharing by consumers, the major record labels are moving closer to releasing music on the Internet with no copying restrictions — a step they once vowed never to take.
Executives of several technology companies meeting here at Midem, the annual global trade fair for the music industry, said over the weekend that at least one of the four major record companies could move toward the sale of unrestricted digital files in the MP3 format within months.

2007-01-22T08:23:00.000-08:00

New Glossary-It's Official!
Zune = Wannabe
“Dude, you look like such a Zune in that shirt.”

2007-01-22T08:04:00.000-08:00

Dying Zune
Sony and Universal Prohibit Sharing Via Zune
Engadget has a story about Sony and Universal Music apparently denying Zune owners the ability to 'squirt' songs by certain artists to other Zune users. That's right, if you've actually purchased songs from the Zune marketplace and happen to run into another Zune owner, you're prohibited from sharing certain songs. From the article: 'In a non-scientific sampling of popular artists by Zunerama and Zune Thoughts, it looks like it's roughly 40-50 percent of artists that fall under this prohibited banner, and the worst news is that there's no warning that a song might be unsharable until you actually try to send it and fail.

2007-01-22T07:56:00.000-08:00

Steve Blunder
Microsoft CEO claims Zune market share, laughs at iPhone
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer claims that his company’s Zune media player took 20% of the high-end digital audio player market—those devices priced $249 or above—following its debut in November. Ballmer’s estimates compare to those of the NPD Group, which said this month that the Zune accounted for only 2.8% of the total digital audio player market in the five-week period from Nov. 19 to Dec. 23.
Characteristically, Ballmer also laughed at Apple’s iPhone and its premium pricing. “$500 full-subsidized with a plan! I said that is the most expensive phone in the world and it doesn’t appeal to business customers because it doesn’t have a keyboard which makes it not a very good email machine,” Ballmer said. “Now, it may sell very well or not, I, you know. We have our strategy, we’ve got great Windows Mobile devices in the market today. You can get a Motorola Q phone now for $99, it’s a very capable machine, it’ll do music, it’ll do Internet, it’ll do email, it’ll do instant messaging. So, I kinda look at that and I say, well, I like our strategy. I like it a lot.”

2006-12-31T22:21:00.000-08:00

h a p p y n e w y e a r 2 0 0 7

my wish for 2007 is
iPod that can read eMagazines and eBooks

2006-12-30T22:06:00.000-08:00

Top Stories 2006
1. Dying Zune
2. Allofmp3 Rise and Fall (not yet)
3. Movie in iTunes Store
4. RIAA Greeds continued
5. Dedicated Reader by Sony

2006-12-20T08:03:00.000-08:00

All Roads
How to Make Deposits at AllofMP3.com
"Allofmp3.com accepts Xrost cards. There are several ways to buy Xrost cards--one of which is using a PaySafeCard. And many ways to buy a PaySafeCard--the most straightforward of which was from www.wertkartenverkauf.com... This is a bit complicated, because you need to print their registration form, sign it, and fax it to them. They needed to see the front and back of my Visa card, and my drivers license. But a couple of hours after they got the fax, my account was opened.
"Then, I bought a Eur50 PaySafeCard from their website. Almost instant. Then [I went] to xrost.biz (where you have to create an account), and purchased a US$60 XRost prepaid card, by typing in the codes from the PaySafeCard.
"[Finally, I] went to allofmp3.com, and entered the codes from the XRost card. The money appears in the account instantly."

2006-12-16T06:53:00.000-08:00

Fairplay Gates
DRM 'Too Complicated' Says Gates
Microsoft boss Bill Gates has told a group of influential bloggers that copy protection for digital music and video is too complex for consumers.
"DRM is not where it should be," said Mr Gates, reported blogger Steve Rubel.
"In the end of the day incentive systems (for artists) make a difference," said Mr Gates.
"But we don't have the right thing here in terms of simplicity or interoperability," he added.

2006-12-01T17:41:00.000-08:00

Give and Sell
Cory Doctorow's future-of-books Forbes op-ed
There's no empirical way to prove that giving away books sells more books--but I've done this with three novels and a short story collection (and I'll be doing it with two more novels and another collection in the next year), and my books have consistently outperformed my publisher's expectations. Comparing their sales to the numbers provided by colleagues suggests that they perform somewhat better than other books from similar writers at similar stages in their careers. But short of going back in time and re-releasing the same books under the same circumstances without the free e-book program, there's no way to be sure.
What is certain is that every writer who's tried giving away e-books to sell books has come away satisfied and ready to do it some more.

2006-12-01T07:44:00.000-08:00

All For Now
AllofMP3 Gone (not yet)
Earlier this week we reported that the United States successfully convinced Russia to shut down discount music site AllofMP3.com. Otherwise, the US threatened, Russia wouldn't see an invite to join the WTO. The document (pdf) at the heart of the matter stated that Russia would not only shut down AllofMP3, but would also shut down any similar websites. That's news to AllofMP3.com, who has issued a statement saying they aren't going anywhere.
"We support Russia in its decision to join WTO and hope that this step will help to put an end to Cold War phobias and that it will also help to facilitate world trade and to adjust business standards especially in the intellectual property domain," the site proclaims. The website argues their operation is perfectly legal under Russian law. "We believe that the site cannot be forced to cease its activities due to Russia’s entry to WTO unless Russian legislation undergoes significant changes," they insist.
They've also issued a position paper explaining exactly how their operations are perfectly legal in Russia. The FAQ also suggests it's legal for United States citizens to use the service.

2006-11-25T04:58:00.000-08:00

Zo Ztupid
How To Bypass The Zune's WiFi Sharing DRM
First, you need to enable hard drive mode using the instructions we posted before. Then, rename whatever files—MP3s, movies, programs—to have the extension ".jpg" in order to fool the Zune into thinking its an image. This hack works because Zune doesn't apply DRM to images!

2006-11-21T08:14:00.001-08:00

iSpin Zune
Bill O'Reilly: iPods Bad for America
On the iPod, Mr. O'Reilly said "I don't own an iPod. I would never wear an iPod... If this is your primary focus in life - the machines... it's going to have a staggeringly negative effect, all of this, for America... did you ever talk to these computer geeks? I mean, can you carry on a conversation with them? I really fear for the United States because, believe me, the jihadists? They're not playing the video games. They're killing real people over there."

2006-11-21T08:14:00.000-08:00

DYING ZUNE

2006-11-18T09:52:00.000-08:00

Hardware Cracked
New software promises to unlock iPod, iTunes
A 22-year-old hacker who as a teen cracked the encryption on DVDs and now has developed a system compatible with Apple's "FairPlay" copyright technology that allows iTunes music to play on other devices and gives iPod users access to other music stores.
"He imitated Apple's system; he didn't remove any copyright protections," said Monique Farantzos, whose DoubleTwist Ventures plans to license the code to businesses. "He made a system that behaves in a similar way."
Jon Lech Johansen has essentially created software that in a way tricks iTunes into thinking a competing device with the DoubleTwist code is an iPod, said Farantzos who predicted it could be available to consumers as soon as the beginning of 2007.
"What this means in practice is that competing (download) stores would be able to make their encrypted content compatible with the iPod, she said. "Hardware devices that have this code embedded could play iTunes content."

2006-11-02T10:15:00.000-08:00

Loose Wire: A Personal Guide to Making Technology Work For You (Paperback)
by Jeremy Wagstaff
I was surprised to see how Jeremy smoothly compiles his old columns with the addition of new commentaries between each topic's significant period.
I think I can compare his cynical and smart deep thoughts, with humourous style, to the best of Suck.com and the early period Wired Magazine. Luckily, for us, Jeremy is still actively writing and researching all the wit and wisdom of implementing new tech for all walks of life.

Book Description
EVER GET THE FEELING that technology is taking over your life and not asking you first? When you've mislaid that important file or can't connect your new camera, do you just want to hurl your computer out of the window? When your kids/friends/grandparents start talking about blogging, podcasting and RSS feeds do you nod as wisely as you can while wrestling with the urge to throw them out of the window too? The bad news is that technology isn't going away. The good news is that, by picking up this book, you're halfway to making it work for you - not against you. Loose Wire is a compilation of Jeremy Wagstaff's most popular weekly columns on personal technology from The Wall Street Journal Asia and the Far Eastern Economic Review. An ordinary person's primer on technology, Loose Wire explains - in jargon-free language and real sentences - what has happened over the past few years, from the rise of the mobile phone to phishing, to where we are heading, as well as hands-on, practical advice about how to enjoy the ride. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Jeremy Wagstaff has worked as a journalist since 1986 - for the BBC, Reuters, The Wall Street Journal and the Far Eastern Economic Review. Most of that time has been spent in Asia, covering uprisings, wars, colonial retreats and the odd (sometimes very odd) press conference. No techie, his interest in technology grew out of a realization that it was changing the way journalists - and the world - work, and that following it would probably be a better idea than fighting it. Since 2000 he has been writing a technology column and has since 2004 appeared regularly on the BBC World Service. He also keeps a blog at www.loosewireblog.com.

2006-10-19T19:16:00.000-07:00

Blacklisted AllofMP3 slams ‘capricious’ Visa and Mastercard
Mediaservices, the owner of the controversial music download site AllofMP3, will pursue "every avenue" to overturn the decisions of Visa and Mastercard to stop processing payments to the company.
In a statement today, the Rusian company said the blacklisting was "arbitrary, capricious and discriminatory". Visa and Mastercard had no authority to judge the legality of AllofMP3's services, and their "determination that the company’s activities were illegal is patently erroneous and without legal merit", it said. "AllofMP3 has not been found by any court in the world to be in violation of any law...To disqualify AllofMP3 based on a payment processing company’s whim is irresponsible and sets a bad precedence."

2006-10-09T13:54:00.000-07:00

RIP
Dying Zune
Microsoft will likely spend nearly $100 million in marketing the Zune. The press will give them tens of millions of dollars in free marketing. In spite of this publicity the Zune will be an expensive failure for Microsoft because consumers aren't stupid. As the saying goes: Zune me once, shame on you. Zune me twice, shame on me.
In spite of the larger display and capacity the Zune is inferior to the MusicGremlin because it zunes your entire purchased music library. Microsoft made a corporate decision to abandon their previous technology called "Plays for Sure" and turn it into "Screwed for Sure". Anyone who purchased music from Rhapsody, Napster, Buy.com, Wal-mart, BuyMusic, etc. will discover that music is unplayable. (Of course iTunes music won't play either because Apple doesn't play nicely with others.) You'll be required to re-purchase that music or go without.

2006-10-01T01:48:00.000-07:00

YouTube
Riddle me this copyright gurus...
...As someone who worked hard AGAINST the DMCA and provided financial support for legal efforts against the movie industry's effort to overturn the BetaMax ruling. Anyone who has read anything I have written, knows I think copy protection schemes are a waste of money and far too much money is wasted trying to police and implement copyright laws. This coming from someone who has a lot of money invested in content.
I wrote the first blog entry simply because I thought the discussion of how and why Youtube had achieved its level of traffic where others had not was interesting. As many different copyright discussions as I have had since 1995, the one constant was that big copyright owners want control. It was never a matter of if they would try to assert themselves to gain control of their content, it was always just a question of how and when...

2006-09-18T09:34:00.000-07:00

Slashdot DRM
MySpace Music Player Hacked
Roy van Rijn writes to tell us about a little program called MySpace MP3 Gopher, with which you can download any song from MySpace as an MP3 even if it is marked to disable downloading. MySpace MP3 Gopher is a Windows program requiring no installation, and for those not on a Windows box the author offers an online version that anyone can run. It is hosted on his home computer so it is bound to get slashdotted rather quickly. All you need to grab a MySpace song is its "friendID," which is in every URL as a parameter. Tech-recipes has step-by-step instructions.

2006-09-18T09:24:00.000-07:00

GoogleBooks
Google Books: Explore Banned Books
To Kill a Mockingbird. Of Mice and Men. The Great Gatsby. 1984. It's hard to imagine a world without these extraordinary literary classics, but every year there are hundreds of attempts to remove great books from libraries and schools. In fact, according to the American Library Association, 42 of 100 books recognized by the Radcliffe Publishing Course as the best novels of the 20th century have been challenged or banned.
Google Book Search is our effort to expand the universe of books you can discover, and this year we're joining libraries and bookstores across the country to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Banned Books Week – a nationwide initiative to help people learn about and explore banned books. You can start by browsing these 42 classics – books we couldn't be more pleased to highlight.

2006-09-15T09:32:00.000-07:00

iMazed
NY Times on iTunes/iPod: CLOSE TO PERFECTION
pple’s digital music system is another story. You can resent Apple all you want, you can call its admirers fanboys, and you can gripe that songs from iTunes don’t work on any pocket player except the iPod.
What you can’t do, however, is find a better online music store, or a free jukebox program as powerful and clean as iTunes. And you certainly won’t find a music player that beats the new iPods in polish, capacity or even price. They come dazzlingly close to perfection.

2006-09-15T09:25:00.000-07:00

Coming Zune
Zune
Marking the next big milestone for its Connected Entertainment vision, Microsoft Corp. today unveiled details of the first products to be released under its Zune™ brand. Designed around the principles of sharing, discovery and community, Zune will create new ways for consumers to connect and share entertainment experiences. The Zune experience centers around connection — connection to your library, connection to friends, connection to community and connection to other devices.
“The digital music entertainment revolution is just beginning,” said J Allard, vice president, design and development, at Microsoft, who is leading the charge for building the family of Zune products. “With Zune, we are not simply delivering a portable device, we are introducing a new platform that helps bring artists closer to their audiences and helps people find new music and develop new social connections.”
Available this holiday season in the United States, Zune includes a 30GB digital media player, the Zune Marketplace music service and a foundation for an online community that will enable music fans to discover new music. The Zune device features wireless technology, a built-in FM tuner and a bright, 3-inch screen that allows users to not only show off music, pictures and video, but also to customize the experience with personal pictures or themes to truly make the device their own. Zune comes in three colors: black, brown and white.

2006-09-12T11:59:00.000-07:00

NEW IPOD
New iPod 5G 1.2
Apple today introduced the new iPod, the best digital music player and most popular portable video player in the world. The new iPod features a 60 percent brighter and more vibrant 2.5-inch color display perfect for watching TV shows and now Hollywood movies right in the palm of your hand.
New Nano 2.0
the all-new iPod nano with a new aluminum body, 24 hours of battery life and more than twice the music capacity for the same price as the previous generation. The new iPod nano features Apple’s innovative Click Wheel and an even smaller, thinner and lighter design and is available in silver, pink, green, blue and black.
New iPod Shuffle
the new iPod shuffle, now the world’s smallest digital music player. Nearly half the size of the original, the new iPod shuffle measures just half a cubic inch in volume, weighs just half an ounce and features a stunning all-new aluminum design and a built-in clip, which makes it the most wearable iPod ever.
I think the old shuffle is much better for its dual functionality as a USB flash disk

2006-09-10T08:35:00.000-07:00

Pre 9/12/06 analysis
Why the iPod is losing its cool
"The iPod is in danger of becoming a victim of its own success: 'Some backlash is against the ubiquity of the iPod - everyone has those white headphones on the train.'"
Analysts warn that the iPod has passed its peak. From its launch five years ago its sales graph showed a consistent upward curve, culminating in a period around last Christmas that saw a record 14 million sold. But sales fell to 8.5 million in the following quarter, and down to 8.1 million in the most recent three-month period. Wall Street is reportedly starting to worry that the bubble will burst.

2006-08-29T08:10:00.000-07:00

Free Universe
Universal backs free music rival to iTunes
Universal Music, the world’s largest music company, is backing a start-up that will allow consumers to download songs for free. It will rely on advertising for its revenues, offering a different business model from that of Apple Computer’s popular iTunes music store.
The move reflects music companies’ willingness to experiment as they try to capture some profit from the boom in digital distribution still dominated by illegal file-sharing networks.

2006-08-24T02:24:00.000-07:00

Done
Apple settles Creative patent claim for $100 million
For Apple, the settlement marks relief for a contentious issue that could have hung over the company for more than a year while the lawsuits were sorted. It also represents a substantial savings over what it could have been ordered to pay had it lost in court, analysts said.
Creative also said it will make iPod-specific accessories in the future and that those devices will also carry the "Made for iPod" badge, although it's unclear if Creative will have to pay for that privilege. Other accessory makers surrender a portion of their margins to Apple—usually 10 percent, but sometimes higher—to carry the "Made for iPod" insignia.

2006-08-13T06:32:00.000-07:00

Economic of RIAA: No DRM, Higher Price???
Yahoo Offers Unrestricted MP3 Download For $1.99; Considering More
Yahoo music head Dave Goldberg has, in the past, expressed he’s a fan of unrestricted MP3 format (meaning no DRM and hence portable to any device, including iPods), pointing to eMusic, which does that (others like MP3tunes.com and smaller sites also do that, with non-mainstream music). Now Yahoo is doing a trial with one big artist, and surveying its Yahoo Music users on whether it should offer more of these MP3 downloads.
On the trial, it is offering the new Jessica Simpson song “A Public Affair” as an MP3 file for $1.99. Which is a high price from the 99 cents for usual downloads people are used to…but I bet it will come down in the next few months. The blog post from Yahoo Music’s official blog says that the premium is for a personalized “name version” of the song, not because it doesn’t have DRM. Also, Ian says on the blog: “The right price for MP3s is somewhere between $0.99 and there, IMHO”, though not sure labels are comfortable doing that yet.
On the survey Yahoo Music is doing, one of the questions in the survey: “Would you consider paying $1.09 for a single, unrestricted MP3 download that would have absolutely no limitations on its use and could be transferred to any portable audio player or computer?” That might be a decent price for initial period.

2006-08-13T06:30:00.000-07:00

Kill DRM
CEA smacks down "thinly veiled attack" by RIAA on fair use
Sounds like consumers (and random people in toxic waste suits) aren't the only ones getting tired of the RIAA's antics. Consumer Electronics Association chief Gary Shapiro had some harsh words for the music industry the other day. He's particularly miffed at the RIAA's wild and fairly unrealistic expectations for an audio broadcast flag. Not only did they start pushing for the spec rather late in the digital radio game, potentially making current investments by broadcasters worthless, but they're not offering any help on the actual spec itself. "In short," says Gary, "the RIAA wants to stop consumers from doing what they've been doing since a tape recorder was first used to capture a song played over the air for private use." Shapiro says the CEA is plenty willing to play the DRM game, and limit "the mass indiscriminate redistribution of music over the Internet," but he says "The game of crying wolf [over piracy] is not only tiresome; it's harmful to consumers and innovation." We couldn't have put it better ourselves.

2006-08-11T20:05:00.000-07:00

iBomb
Some Can't Imagine Flying Without iPods
Fly without an iPod? No way, say some lovers of the digital music players.
But British authorities are banning iPods, laptop computers, cell phones and other portable electronic devices on their flights. It's feared the gizmos could be used to fashion detonators for a terrorist bomb.

2006-08-09T05:52:00.000-07:00

Allmypleasure
BPI begs Beckett to step up AllofMP3 pressure at G8 summit
The BPI has asked foreign secretary Margaret Beckett to put pressure on the Russian government to close down Allofmp3.com.
Beckett is attending the G8 Summit in St Petersburg, where the UK music industry body want her to raise the issue of Allofmp3.com with Russian president Vladimir Putin.

2006-08-09T05:48:00.000-07:00

iPod minus Nike+
Marware's Sportsuit Sensor+ for Nike + iPod Sport Kit
Designed to complement the Nike + iPod Sport Kit, Sportsuit Sensor+ is a finely crafted neoprene and rubber pouch that allows serious runners to attach the Nike + iPod wireless sensor to the top of your favorite pair of running shoes.

2006-08-09T05:46:00.000-07:00

iJeans
Levi’s iPod-compatible jeans spotted
The first photos of Levi’s iPod-ready denim jeans have made their way online. Originally announced in January, the Levi’s RedWire DLX jeans feature a built-in iPod cradle and red strap inside the side pocket, a control pad located on the jeans’ watch pocket, and a set of adjustable earbuds. The jeans are expected to be available this Fall. Pricing has not yet been announced.

2006-07-22T05:16:00.000-07:00

Zune
Microsoft's Zune to rival iPod, iTunes
Microsoft today confirmed that it will launch an iPod competitor branded as "Zune." The offering will include portable media players as well as an online service, similar to Apple's iTunes Music Store. The Wall Street Journal reports that Chris Stephenson -- Microsoft's general manager of marketing for MSN Entertainment Business -- said that Microsoft sees "great opportunity to bring together technology and community to allow consumers to explore and discover music together." Stephenson said the first musical device will contain a hard drive as well as Wi-Fi connectivity, and that the company is looking at seven or eight different wireless scenarios, which range from enabling users to view as well as sample music from other Zune devices in the same hotspot to purchasing and downloading music directly to the device.

2006-07-11T20:50:00.000-07:00

XPod
Apple and Microsoft race to launch wireless iPOD
Computer giants Apple and Microsoft are racing to develop a wireless digital music player in time for Christmas, it emerged today.
The new gadget would enable songs to be downloaded without having to plug the equipment into a personal computer.
Apple, the market leader which currently sells around 3million iPods - its brand of portable music player - every month, is said to be creating a wireless version also boasting a 'funky' aluminium design.
Current iPod owners have to sit in front of a computer to download music onto the gadget. But with the wireless version, they would be able to download new songs anywhere and at any time - as long as there is a wireless network in the area.

2006-07-08T12:54:00.000-07:00

iHearSay

iPod A Danger In Lightning Storms, Doctors Say
A teenager who was hit by lightning over the weekend talked about his close brush with death Thursday.
Jason Bunch was mowing the lawn and listening to his iPod Nano outside his home on July 2 when he was struck by lightning.

2006-07-08T12:51:00.000-07:00

FreeBooks
World eBook Fair tops 1.5m free downloads in first few days
If you give books away, especially online, readers will snap them up.
That seems to be the lesson of the first few days of the World eBook Fair, a one-month experiment in free downloadable books produced by Illinois-based Project Gutenberg. The fair began Tuesday, and already more than 1.5 million books have been downloaded, said Gregory Newby, Gutenberg's volunteer CEO.
``We passed a million about 1 this morning," Newby said yesterday afternoon by phone from Anchorage. ``As of this moment, it's 1,542,000."

2006-07-08T12:49:00.000-07:00

Immortal
Death bell for AllofMP3.com?
Is the noohttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifse is tightening around Russia’s Allofmp3.com?
Or is it yet another PR ploy initiated by the Big Four Organized Music cartel to convince the world at large it has a handle on p2p file sharing which in reality, it’s been unable to crush or subvert, years of desperate attempts to do so notwithstanding?
Far from being a threat to the music market, "whether legal or not under Russian law, regardless of the BPI’s whimpering lawsuit," AllofMP3.com is a perfect example of how, "different markets can, and should, price music according to the public’s purchase power," Fading Ways Music owner Neil Leyton told delegates at the recent Trans Atlantic Comsumer Dialogue (TACD) conference in Paris, France.

2006-07-02T13:25:00.000-07:00

iOooops
Apple faces the music as public discord with iPod grows
But two years after Britain fell in love with the iPod there are signs that the pocket-sized box that transformed the way millions listen to music is beginning to lose its shine.
Internet chatrooms are carrying accounts of "unreliable machines", while questions are being asked about working conditions in the Chinese factories where they are made.
The "very significant" fall in public confidence is highlighted in new figures from YouGov's brand awareness index, which show a steady fall in the popularity of the Apple brand.

2006-06-25T11:18:00.000-07:00

P2P Gadget
Hitch
The Hitch allows you to transfer all types of files on the go, without the need for a computer. Most Digital Audio Player (DAP) owners get their own music and video for use on their players from media they own, and can use the Hitch to transfer that content between their devices without lugging around a laptop or going back home to use a PC. Pictures, Video, Audio, Documents – all can be transferred quickly and easily without being tethered to a PC the “old way”. Plus, it does this all without being plugged into a wall like a portable hard-drive, AND Hitch's internal battery can charge any USB charge-capable device.

2006-06-25T11:16:00.000-07:00

hhmmmm
Sound Improvement Disc?
The Sound Improvement Disc is an accesory that is placed on top of the CD , results in a better separation of instruments and a much clearer reproduction of the voice.
All CDs are see through no matter if they are coloured or not. One only needs to take a small torch and hold it against the silver side of a CD to see that the light is visable through the disc. It is also possible to move the CD up to 1,3mm away from the laser. Being as the CD is only 1,2mm thick it shows that it is possible for the laser to actually see right through the CD. With this in mind the correction system reacts to the varying reflections it sees from the label thus giving the system more work to do than is necessary. With this in mind the sound will be very much smoother as it has hardly any interruptions induced by false information from the correction system.
The SID disc has a special matt finish on one side and this side is placed to the CD label so that the stray laser light is absorbed , the green colour changing the red light of the laser into black thus neutralising it.

2006-06-20T00:52:00.000-07:00

New Price Standard
Apple's Jobs insisting on $9.99 movies for iTunes
Apple CEO Steve Jobs is determined to have $9.99 pricing for full-length movies in the iTunes Music Store, according to Variety. Jobs is reported to be currently in negotiations with the major film studios about licensing movies, but has been met with resistance. “Studios have resisted Jobs’ initial insistence that feature films be priced at the easy-to-remember $9.99,” reports Variety. “After all, library titles are typically sold to Wal-Mart and Best Buy significantly cheaper than new releases. Studios now are trying to convince Apple to sell similar content at multiple price points, something the company has never done. Also complicating the deals: The studios are working out terms with a host of other distributors, including Amazon, Movielink and BitTorrent, in part to make sure that one company does not dominate. It seems that none of the studios wants to be first in making a deal with Apple.”

2006-06-16T00:24:00.000-07:00

weird
Weird Al Yankovic Says Digital Is a Raw Deal For Some Artists
"I am extremely grateful for your support, no matter which format you choose to legally obtain my music in, so you should do whatever makes the most sense for you personally. But since you ASKED... I actually do get significantly more money from CD sales, as opposed to downloads. This is the one thing about my renegotiated record contract that never made much sense to me. It costs the label NOTHING for somebody to download an album (no manufacturing costs, shipping, or really any overhead of any kind) and yet the artist (me) winds up making less from it. Go figure."

2006-06-11T22:28:00.000-07:00

Civil disobedience
DRM - Is It Worth Going To Jail For?

The RIAA and the MPAA are well insulated against us. There is no actual way we have to get to them, except through the court system, and either entity has enough money to outlast any individual in the court system. The frustrating part of fighting this DRM/TC nightmare is the inaccessability of either organization. However, there is a way to get to them, in a way. Unfortunately it may be illegal to do so. Under no circumstances should this be done.

The only people who can influence either group are the retailers that carry the DRM'ed dvd's and cd's. If by chance, millions of people were to, on the same day and within the same three hour period, purchase a number of DRM'ed disks, then walk out the door then back in and return the merchandise, it would cause havoc in the retail world for that day.

Read the whole thing and - like the posting says - don't buy a CD on July 4th between 11 and 14 and immediately return it because it has DRM.

2006-06-07T05:01:00.000-07:00

Appleberry Juice
AppleBerry might be the next big thing
Is the day near when you will get music on your BlackBerry and e-mail on your iPod?
The idea of an “AppleBerry” partnership between Research In Motion Ltd. and Apple Computer Inc. was floated yesterday by Peter Misek, an analyst with Canaccord Capital Inc., who last year accurately predicted a partnership between RIM and Intel Corp.
Such a deal would have huge merit because each company lacks what the other provides. RIM wants a firm foothold in the consumer market and Apple doesn't have a presence in the booming wireless data sector, he said.
The two might jointly develop a new device: Apple could create a cellphone combining its iPod music device with RIM's wireless technology, or RIM might embed Apple's iTunes music into a future BlackBerry, he speculated.

2006-06-07T04:58:00.000-07:00

iCreate Problems
Apple files second copyright suit against Creative
Apple has filed a second copyright lawsuit and a U.S. trade complaint against Creative Technology, according to Channel NewsAsia. “In its latest lawsuit, Apple claims Creative is infringing three patents relating to using icons, and displaying and editing data,” reports the publication. “It is asking for cash damages and a court order to stop Creative from further breaches. At the same time, Apple wants the International Trade Commission in Washington to block imports of Creative’s music players.”