Top Items:
Derek Slater / Electronic Frontier Foundation:
Microsoft's Zune Won't Play Protected Windows Media — In yesterday's announcement of the new Zune media player and Zune Marketplace. Microsoft (and many press reports) glossed over a remarkable misfeature that should demonstrate once and for all how DRM and the DMCA harm legitimate customers.
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Jay Greene / Business Week:
Coming Zune: Microsoft's Music Player — In spite of new features like Wi-Fi and sharing, don't expect Microsoft's new player to clobber the iPod in the near future — When it comes to digital music, there's a lot that puts Apple (AAPL) ahead of the pack. Microsoft (MSFT) plans to use people-power to narrow that lead.
Kirk / Medialoper:
Zune's Big Innovation: Viral DRM — Now that Microsoft has released some hard facts about Zune we can finally begin to sort out how much of an impact the product might have on the digital music market. For weeks we've been hearing rumors about how Zune's wireless capabilities will be used …
Cory Doctorow / Boing Boing:
Amazon Unbox to customers: Eat s**t and die — Cory Doctorow: Amazon's new video-on-demand store may sound like a good idea, but once you take a look at the "agreement" you enter into by giving them your money, that changes. The Amazon terms-of-service are among the worst I've ever seen …
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Business Week:
Who Is Jonathan Ive? — An in-depth look at the man behind Apple's design magic — Last spring, an eclectic mix of designers thrilled an auditorium full of their peers at a conference called Radical Craft, put on by the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Calif. Fashion designer …
Ryan Katz / Think Secret:
Sources: Apple phone on track for early '07 — Apple is working at a feverish pace to finish up its initial foray into the cellular phone market, but reliable sources report the new device will not be announced until Macworld Expo San Francisco in January 2007.
Discussion:
Engadget, Valleywag, CrunchGear, The Tech Report, The Digital Music Weblog, VoIP & Gadgets Blog, Digital Download and digg
Dave Zatz / Zatz Not Funny:
Sling CEO Interviewed, Additional OS Support Revealed — Blake Krikorian, Sling Media co-founder and CEO, was interviewed by The Guardian. It's a good read in which he discusses where Sling is, where they intend to go, and the market in general. Of particular interest is confirmation …
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New York Times:
Reports Say H.P. Relied on Boston Security Unit — Hewlett-Packard's search for directors that it suspected had leaked confidential information to the news media relied on an arm of the company's own security force based in Boston, people briefed on the internal investigation said late Thursday.
Rafat / paidContent.org:
Mixi's IPO Doubles on Day One; $1.9 Billion Valuation Japan's popular social networking site Mixi debuted on the stock market today, and its shares doubled their IPO price on their first day of trade, with investors saying demand for stock could remain high despite fears it was overvalued.
Discussion:
ben barren
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GigaOM:
Is Steve Jobs the New Lord of the Rings? — The ability to run multiple operating systems simultaneously on the same machine under one supra-operating system or "hypervisor"- all with touch-of-a-key flexibility — has long been the Holy Grail of the computer industry.
Discussion:
AMCP Tech Blog
blogs.ittoolbox.com:
Offtopic: Latest iPod Upgrade Breaks iPod Car Interfaces? — If you're as addicted to your iPod as I am to mine, then you probably saw that on September 12th Apple released iTunes version 7 to the masses. — While iTunes 7 is extremely cool (aside from the numerous forum postings …
Simon Burns / vnunet:
DVD chips 'to kill illegal copying' — Embedded radio transmitter chips to track movie, music and software discs — DVDs will soon be tracked with embedded radio transmitter chips to prevent copying and piracy, according to the company which makes movie discs for Warner, Disney, Fox and other major studios.
Matt Marshall / VentureBeat:
Fliqz raises $1 million...for yet another video site — Folks, it's time to stop launching video sites. We have lost count. No human mind can keep track of all the video sites out there, or the tiny nuances of sharing and hosting technology that differentiate them.
Richard MacManus / Read/WriteWeb:
New York Times Reader Launches — The next generation Times Reader desktop application, built by NY Times and Microsoft, has just gone live. At the end of August Read/WriteWeb published exclusive pre-launch screenshots of Times Reader, but now you can download the app and see for yourself.
Discussion:
paidContent.org
Kris Graft / Next Generation:
Fils-Aime: Wii Hardware Profitable at Launch — Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime says Wii hardware will be profitable from the start. — Typically, videogame console manufacturers sell their hardware at a loss, making up for losses through accessory and game sales.
Vladimir Cole / Joystiq:
Rational gamers choose subsidized hardware, all else equal [update 1] — The reaction to our post about the Wii being profitable at launch puzzles. — If companies like Sony and Microsoft want to subsidize their consoles to the the point that they're losing money on every unit sold …
Wil / WWdN: In Exile:
Apple gave me back all my lost music, free of charge — Earlier today, when my iPod and my upgraded iTunes 7 got together and decided that my purchased music would really be happier living on a farm upstate with other m4p's, I did whatever I could to convince the music to come back.
Discussion:
CrunchGear, Ed Bott's Windows Expertise, GottaBeMobile.com, Blogging Stocks, jkOnTheRun and digg