Top Items:
Jeff Leeds / New York Times:
Microsoft Strikes Deal for Music — In a rare move, Microsoft said yesterday that it had agreed to pay a percentage of the sales of its new portable media player to the Universal Music Group. — Universal Music, a unit of Vivendi, will receive a royalty on the Zune player in exchange …
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Om Malik / GigaOM:
Microsoft, Zune & The Music Mafia — The New York Times reports that Microsoft has cut a deal with Universal Music Group which will allow the music giant to get a percentage of the sale of its upcoming digital music player, Zune. The report says that the amount being paid to UMG is going to be at least $1 per $250 device.
Discussion:
Global Nerdy
Michael Gartenberg:
Can't Buy Me Love (or can you?) - Universal Gets Paid for Zune — Interesting news out of Redmond late last night that Microsoft will be paying a cut of Zune's sales to Vivendi Universal Music. Interesting move "A gesture of this type shows our commitment to the industry" said their spokesman.
Lore Sjöberg / Wired News:
EULA La Vista, Baby — There have been a lot of concerns about the end-user license agreement for Windows Vista. For instance, once you agree to the license you are not allowed to publish benchmark results without Microsoft's permission, and you can't install Vista on a virtual machine unless you shell out for the pricier version.
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Paul Thurrott / SuperSite for Windows:Windows Vista RTM Screenshot Galleries
Discussion:
CyberNet Technology News
David Kushner / Rolling Stone:
The Baby Billionaires of Silicon Valley — The Internet's new boom kids are poised to take over the world — if they don't crash first — >> Think you've got the chops to make it big? Get your brag on and see what other readers are saying about the Web 2.0 elite. — Did someone order a lap dance?
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Scott Kessler / Business Week:
Old Media and New Media: Friends, Not Foes — Search and advertising services from Google and Yahoo! are helping traditional media companies extend their content online and generate revenue — If content is king, then its queen is making money. This marriage of substance and sales …
Andrew / zBiz.TV:
How do I get my company profiled on TechCrunch? Mike Arrington chats with Guy Kawasaki — Click To Play — How do I get Mike Arrington to profile my company on TechCrunch? How do I get his attention in the first place? — The answers to these questions and more were explored …
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David Pogue / New York Times:
Trying Out the Zune: IPod It's Not — Microsoft is probably the greenest company in all of high tech. Not green in the environmental sense — green with envy. — Microsoft is so jealous of the iPod's success that Tuesday it will unveil a new music system — pocket player …
Duncan / Skype Blogs:
A new face for 3.0 — Firstly, a quick introduction. My name is Duncan and I'm an interaction designer here at Skype. I get to work with all kinds of interesting people, dreaming up new ways to make Skype useful, fun and usable. Making Skype easy to use is something we take very seriously.
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Tim Smalley / bit-tech.net:
G80: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX — DirectX 10 and Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system have been looming on the technological horizon for some time now. Although the two aren't going to be available until next year, many hardware enthusiasts have decided to save up in readiness …
John R. Quain / New York Times:
A Wi-Fi Express Lane — IT'S axiomatic in the computer world that nothing is ever fast enough. And so it goes with popular wireless Wi-Fi networks, which already seem overcrowded and slow. The growing interest in video sites like YouTube and streaming TV programs online has served to underscore the problem.
Muhammad Saleem / The Mu Life:
Why Socially Driven News is Better — When news broke earlier today that Rumsfeld has resigned, within 2-3 minutes I got an email from a social bookmarker about the development. 20 minutes later, another friend pointed out that Googling Rumsfeld was still not reflecting the latest story.
Discussion:
Mathew Ingram
RADAR:
APPLE DITCHES 'MAC GUY' IN NEW ADS — Apple's "I'm a Mac" campaign is almost perfect: It's funny, memorable, and efficiently lays out the advantages of Macs over PCs. Its only defect: Virtually everyone who watches it comes away liking the "PC guy" while wanting to push the "Mac guy" under a bus.
Discussion:
LIVEdigitally, AdJab, Life On the Wicked Stage, The Unofficial Apple Weblog, Global Nerdy, Mickeleh's Take, CrunchGear, OpsanBlog, Channel 9, Tech_Space and digg
Jeffrey M. O'Brien / Fortune:
A factory of one's own — According to MIT's Neil Gershenfeld, the digital revolution is over, and the good guys won. The next big change will be about manufacturing. Anyone with a PC will be able to build anything just by hitting 'print.' — (Fortune Magazine) — Imagine a machine with the ability to manufacture anything.
Nick / Rough Type:
Welcome back to frugal computing — In a Wired article about the huge new data centers being built along the Columbia River by Google and its competitors, George Gilder writes that "in every era, the winning companies are those that waste what is abundant - as signalled by precipitously declining prices …
Allison Randal / O'Reilly Radar:
Stikkit - Sticky Notes Reborn — At the Web 2.0 Summit Launch Pad, Rael Dornfest and Michael Buffington launched Stikkit, a slick new site for organizing your life. The basic concept is simple: take notes in your browser instead of scrawling them on sticky notes and tacking them to your computer monitor …
Nicholas D. Kristof / New York Times:
America's Laziest Man? — Last year, Barry Diller took home a pay package worth $469 million, making him the highest-paid chief executive in America. — His shareholders didn't do so well. Stock in the main company he runs, IAC/Interactive, declined 7.7 percent last year.
Discussion:
New Media Musings
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
iLike Adds Music Videos From YouTube — There's lots of buzz about newcomer social music site iLike (a Garageband service) this week at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. We originally covered them in late October - download the iLike iTunes sidebar and see music related to what you listen to …
