Amazon looks to be getting into the digital music game, with the New York Post of all organizations claiming that the Web retailer will launch an online music store the week of September 17. That specific date is tentative, by the way. The store will have support from two of the Big Four record labels—Universal and EMI. (There will also be plenty of independent labels.) You’ll notice a lack of Sony BMG and Warner. That’s because that latter two still insist that their music be wrapped up in DRM, something the Amazon store won’t have.
I repeat, the Amazon store won’t have any DRM; the songs will be DRM-free MP3s. That’s what the reports indicate, at least.
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DivX and D-Link have mashed up to produce the D-Link DSM-330 DivX Connected HD Media Player. WTF is that? It’s quite simple really, DivX Connected is being touted as a powerful, easy-to-use open platform that will allow you to stream your HD content from your PC to your TV thus making your already couch potato lifestyle complete. DivX Connected includes built-in support for Stage6 in case you were wondering. Again, we’re being screwed as the D-Link DSM-330 whatchamacallit is being launched in Germany, France and the UK sometime in the latter quarter of this year.
DivX Connected [via Press Release]
When humankind first climbed out of the primordial sludge, they had a lot to do. They had to make the wheel, the breathstrip, and the airplane almost immediately, not to mention the codification of thoughts and actions through the written word and the codification of hotness through porn and Grey’s Anatomy. In all honesty, we haven’t had much time between now and then to make a Brush and Rinse toothbrush, but I’m glad that someone has finally put curing cancer aside for this pressing matter.
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Hmmm. Not sure what to think about this one. Amazon has been known to leak many a thing, but they’ve also been known to make a snafu here and there. Apple seriously doesn’t think people will be paying $600+ for a new iPod, right? Why the difference in price between white and black? What say ye?
Amazon Gives Away New iPod Pricing? [9to5Mac]
Grab ‘em while you can
Great, another edition of “My member is bigger than your member.” NBC and Apple agreed to part ways last night, with NBC refusing to cede to Apple’s demands as it relates to publishing its high art on iTunes. In other words, you’ll no longer be able to download NBC shows off iTunes once December rolls around. (The previous contract runs through December.)
Way to look out for the customer, guys.
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I recently had the opportunity to try out a prototype of the upcoming flagship earphones from Ultimate Ears, the outrageously pricey UE-11 Pro’s. For $1150, you get four drivers — including a subwoofer — in each custom-molded plastic earpiece, complete with custom artwork (see mine above). What you also get is a trip to the audiologist to get molds made of the insides of your ear canals, which is a pretty bizarre and… er… violating experience. Here’s a first-hand account of the UE custom experience, plus a look at how other companies do it.
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Casio is using this year’s IFA trade show to almost unveil an experimental new digital camera. Preliminarily part of the Exilim line, Casio claims the camera will be able to shoot six-megapixel images at 60 frames per second. Not only that, but that it’ll be able to record VGA-quality video at 300 frames per second. And here I thought the human eye was unable to distinguish the difference between 30 and 60 frames per second, though seasoned first person shooter players may argue differently.
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Seems there’s a new epidemic going around at big box retailers that involves bilking people out of $30. Sales reps at Best Buy and Circuit City have been telling digitally impotent customers that they’d be wise to pony up some extra dough for recovery CDs — CDs that would cost twice as much from the manufacturer and can’t be made by the customers themselves. Birdshit. You can make the CDs yourself and it’s as easy as falling in love.
As someone who’s worked in sales and/or tech support for Best Buy, Circuit City, and CompUSA, I feel qualified to speak on the subject of how retailers encourage their salespeople to go about cheating you out of your hard earned money. Here are a few tips to help you avoid getting ripped off at stores like these.
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Comments are the greasy oil that keeps the blog machine running. Here are three great (and 100% unedited) comments recently posted by your fellow readers.
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If at first you don’t succeed in suing an anti-spyware maker for identifying your program as spyware, try, try again. Apparently adware/spyware peddler, Zango, didn’t like PCTools and Kaspersky Antivirus calling it like they see it.
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Let me start by saying that I’m the proud owner for a 37-inch Olevia LCD HDTV. I love the thing. I got it brand new at Fry’s for under $600, including tax. That’s a fantastic deal, especially since the TV itself is kickass. But now I’m thinking upgrade, as Syntax is unveiling a 65-inch LCoS TV next week, and it promises to kickass as well.
LCoS is a cousin to both DLP and LCD, using the mirror theory behind DLP but with standard liquid crystals, on silicon (not silicone). It makes for a bright, clear picture, and is relatively cheap to manufacture. That means this 65-inch, 1080P HDTV will retail for under two-large, a great deal.
We’re looking forward to seeing this unit in doorbuster specials on Black Friday, so keep us on your screen between now and then to see how low it goes.
Press Release [via Slippery Brick]
Oh, boy, the first pictures of the Zune 2. All credit to the Giz, if you couldn’t tell by the inconspicuous watermarkage. We can deduce from the one and only picture that there will be two models, a regular, hard drive-based model (80GB) and a 4/8GB flash-based model. AKA, exactly what you’d expect from a DAP/PMP in 2007. Take note, Apple.
Supposedly, the photos have been corroborated by a second source, but who could put it past Microsoft to pepper the Internet with fakes and mockups?
First Zune 2 and Zune Flash Shots [GIZMODO]
I’m pretty sure this I’ve seen this thesis before, but who am I to argue with an Australian newspaper I’ve never heard of? The long and short of it is, the PS2 is a long ways away from tapping out. Sony likes to think the system has a good three to four years left, but developers are more likely to say that the number’s closer to two to three years. Either way, the system with the dumbest commercials ever is still kicking.
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HP’s new dx2250 desktop — and AMD-based workstation — will come pre-loaded with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. The PC, which will cost about $500, is currently available in Australia because, as we all know, kangaroos live there.
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The above image illustrates what I’ve been feeling for years now. And you’re all welcome.
From XKCD [Good Comics]
Would you trust him to unlock your iPhone?
Fact: it is legal to unlock your iPhone. Sorta.
The AP—you may have heard of it—decided to see just how legal it is for Joe User to unlock his iPhone. As it turns out, so long as you’re unlocking the iPhone and there’s no money involved (unlike other organizations that wanted to charge a fee for the service), it seems you’re in the clear. It’s when an individual or individuals decide to make money that AT&T may be able to sue you into the stone age.
Basically, Craig from Degrassi inspired the AP to investigate the whole deal. An act from the Library of Congress last year should mean that Craig and those like him are safe and sound. No doubt everyone on Slashdot would agree.
IPhone Hackers Could Face Legal Battle [AP/Yahoo via AppleInsider]
Good for you, Sony. You get points for finally throwing in the towel on your CONNECT Music Service.
Granted you stopped trying to patch it well over a year ago and it never really worked correctly in the first place but kudos to you for shutting it down by March of next year. That oughta give all those people who never used the service a chance to back up all the songs they never purchased.
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How many pictures are stored in your cell phone? It’s a rhetorical question, but I can speculate that there are a bunch. Camera phones aren’t new, but until recently the picture quality, well for lack of a better description, sucked. Three years ago I took a picture of Bill Cosby and not one single person who I showed it to could tell it was him.
Still, I do take pictures with my camera phone and I have been searching for a better solution. I tried posting the photos on the phone company’s site, but that required me to have to go to their web address to view them. One day, I went to see my pictures and they were gone, timed out. Next, I tried emailing them to myself (and others) and while that worked, I was paying the phone company for the privilege of sending myself an email of pictures to store or print. Of course the photos sucked anyway, so why even bother?
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So this PMP looks kinda neat. It’s from LG and it’s called the T54, not to be confused with the T1000. It’s more or less the same PMP you can find in any Best Buy or yard sale at this point: 2GB, 4GB and 8GB capacities, plays every audio/video format under the sun (save for AAC), built-in FM radio and DMB, etc. One more pic where?
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