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Microsoft's Zune Delivers Connected Music and Entertainment Experience — Built-in wireless technology lets consumers share experiences device to device. — 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.
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Paul Miller / Engadget:
Microsoft launches the Zune! — As expected, Microsoft is busting out the Zune today, and we've got the rundown. Not a lot of surprises in the specs department, but they've confirmed the basics we've known for a while, like WiFi, 30GB of HDD, built-in FM, a 3-inch screen and the basic music, pictures and video playback.
Ryan Block / Engadget:
The Engadget Interview: J Allard, Microsoft Corporate Vice President — We only got a mere 20 minutes of his time, but Peter and I got a chance to talk to the one and only J Allard about the Zune, digital media, and the direction Microsoft is taking things in what could be their most public marketplace battle since the browser wars.
Cyrus Farivar / Engadget:
Zune Marketplace to keep your Zune player stocked — The iPod had to move over (even if only a little today), and now it's turn for iTunes to move as well. Zune's software is, of course, called Zune, and it encompasses everything you'd expect from your standard single-shot media player, download, and management console.
John Biggs / TechCrunch:
Zune Promises MySpace-like Connectivity — Just got off the phone with Microsoft about the new Zune and the magic therein. It's a 30GB player that comes in three colors - black, white, and brown - and plays back most major file formats. That much you can read over at CrunchGear so head over there if you want the specs.
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Ideas are Worthless …
Chris Kohler / Game|Life:
Region-Free Wii — The Wii will be region-free, or at least it should be. — That's the word from Wired News' Joel Johnson, who found Nintendo's VP of marketing Perrin Kaplan at the recent New York City press event and got her to reveal that, like the Nintendo DS, Nintendo's Wii games will work on any console regardless of region.
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Business Wire:
Yahoo! Announces Availability of New Yahoo! Mail Beta to Users Worldwide; World's No. 1 Web Email Provider Opens Beta Service to All Users in US and 18 Global Markets — Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) today introduced the widespread availability of a robust new version of Yahoo! Mail, the No. 1 Web mail service in the world(1).
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Marshall Kirkpatrick / TechCrunch:
Yahoo! Mail beta to open to the public starting today — The powerful new Yahoo! Mail beta will open up for general use starting today. Richard MacManus has a great post and podcast interview about the product that will roll out to all users in 18 countries over the next two weeks.
Michael Gartenberg:
Today's Zune News - First Take — Well, we heard from Apple earlier this week (but don't think that's the last word. Last year Apple followed up the Nano announcement with the 5G iPods just a few weeks later) and now it's Microsoft's turn. I spent some time recently with the Zune …
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Brian Chin / Todd Bishop's Microsoft Blog:
The real Zune challenge
The real Zune challenge
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Addicted to Digital Media
Nick / Rough Type:
Office generations — This is the first in a series of occasional commentaries on the future of corporate IT. — In the wake of the popular embrace of the buzzword Web 2.0, the suffix "2.0" has become an all-purpose signifier of putatively revolutionary newness.
Liz Gannes / GigaOM:
Evan Williams: How Odeo Screwed Up — Public hindsight about startups' missteps generally comes after a good amount of "traveling in Europe with my fiancée" or whatever it is that failed CEOs do. However, Evan Williams just gave a refreshing talk about the dangers of combining money …
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Texas Startup Blog
Nathan Weinberg / InsideGoogle:
GOOGLE PERSONALIZED HOMEPAGE GETS TABS, JUST LIKE LIVE.COM — Google pulls a trick out of Microsoft's bag (a logical one, to be fair), and adds tabs to the personalized homepage. Here are the tabs as I see them right now on my IG in Opera: — With no extra tabs: — With tabs:
Dan Farber / Between the Lines:
TechCrunch's Arrington shares his winners and losers — TechCruncher Mike Arrington opened the second day of The Future of Web Apps Summit with his picks of Web 2.0 winners and losers and gives advice to wouldbe startups. He also announced the next blog in the TechCrunch family, which will cover enterprise products.
Arik Hesseldahl / Business Week:
Apple's iTV: Bridging the Big Divide — The iPod maker is betting it can do a better job than predecessors in getting digital content from the computer to the TV — Apple Computer (AAPL) often proves itself to be the best at building smartly designed consumer products. But it's not always the first.
Rakesh Agrawal / Rakesh Agrawal's Blog:
The road to Google Calendar (talk by Carl Sjogreen of Google) — Carl Sjogreen delivered an extremely informative talk about how they built Google Calendar. He covers everything from the initial customer interviews and research, to the vision they established for the product …
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