Filed under: Portable Audio
There really hasn’t been a whole lot of love lost between Apple
[Thanks, Mack S]
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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time
Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Filed under: Home Entertainment, Portable Video
We’ve heard rumblings for a while — and Wal-Mart’s purported intense opposition to the iTunes Movie Store might’ve had something to do with it as well — but now the rumors are coming hot and heavy in regards to a movie download store from the retail giant. First off, we have a new job listing from Wal-Mart in regards to a business manager for a digital video division who can sort out “pricing strategies to maximize market share.” And then there’s a report by CNN Money citing “sources” that say Wal-Mart is hoping to launch in the coming months, and is currently debating pricing structures. (If only they had a business manager who could sort out “pricing strategies to maximize market share.”) Wal-Mart is also supposedly considering in-store kiosks, and a deal to allow for a free digital version of a movie with the purchase of a physical DVD, or at least for a few dollars more. Wal-Mart of course wouldn’t confirm or deny these report, but dropped some big juicy hints such as: “Our customers want to watch movies and they want to be able to make the choice when and how they want to view them.” Right now it looks like a natural move for Wal-Mart, and we sure wouldn’t complain if they manage to drive prices down — as seems to be their way — but we’ll let them and that business manager figure things out for now while we head over to iTunes for a bit of The Princess Diaries.
[Via Techcrunch]
Read – Wal-Mart sets stage for digital action
Read – Wal-Mart moves on digital movie downloads
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SPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
Man, Steve really must have people in a tizzy, the rumor mill is still glowing bright even at two in the damn morning. Up today we have:
New Zealand supposedly leaks 50GB / 80GB iPod dock adapter kit for Universal Dock system. Oook., and the TubePort, a streaming home theater movie device that connects your TV to your computer via USB and grabs movies hosted by Apple.So that’s not a lot, but we weren’t going to write those up (even though they’re a little too good to leave alone). Stick close for more, it’s gonna be a busy day — and feel free to hit us up with your late breaking rumors in comments!
[Thanks, Graham & dawnraid]
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Filed under: Portable Video
The word is out on Amazon’s movie download service. After plenty of rumorings, it doesn’t look like Amazon will be able to keep mum on the subject for long, since they’re expected to launch “Unbox” today. The word on prices isn’t exactly wonderful: rentals should go for about 4 bucks, while permanent downloads are hovering at $15. TV shows are matching the $2 iTunes pricepoint, and should be available the day after they air. As for studios, Amazon is purported to have Warner Bros., Fox, Paramount, MGM, Lionsgate, Sony
[Thanks, Decemberice]
Read – Unbox rumor roundup
Read – Unbox screenshots
Read – Amazon.com/unbox (not yet live)
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Filed under: Desktops, Portable Audio, Portable Video
Yes, it appears that at least one part of the Apple
[Via MacUser, thanks to everyone who sent this in]
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Filed under: Home Entertainment
Ok, so in addition the new iMacs Steve is expected to announce on the event-that-may-or-may-not-happen on September 12th, and the updated Nano, the official announcement of movies on iTMS, we can also expect to see a standalone dedicated movie streaming device running an “updated version” of iTunes (not Front Row). Speculated to be a new movie-enhanced version of the Airport Express (or some like device). Kind of reminds us of the iHome rumor, or the Apple HDTVs rumor, but this one somehow seems a little more subtle and plausible. We’ve doubted their entrance into unexpected types of consumer electronics before (see: Hi-Fi), so who knows, maybe you’ll watch iTunes-downloaded movies on your video iPod
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Filed under: Portable Audio
has settled a lawsuit filed by a Vermont-based company called Contois Music Technology, which alleged that the iTunes user interface violated a 1996 patent for a “Computer Control System and User Interface for Media Playing Devices.” Contois Music Technology claimed that Apple integrated elements from its patent into iTunes, and based its accusation on the fact that Apple employees were present at trade shows in the mid-90s where Contois Music Tech had demonstrated its software. Some of the functionality which the company claims was copied by Apple includes using a menu selection process to select music, the ability to search and sort music based on the genre, artist, and album, and transferring music from a library to a portable music player. As we reported last year when the lawsuit was filed, several other software packages capable of similar functionality existed around the same time as when Contois Music Technology was showing off its patented software (e.g. WinAmp), but as patent-infringement cases are notoriously expensive to fight, we’re not surprised that Apple decided to settle instead. As the exact terms of the settlement were not disclosed (read: how much Apple had to cough up), it’ll be hard to draw parallels between this and Apple’s recent $100 Million settlement with Creative over the menu system for the iPod: unfortunately, that also means we’ll have to wait until the next Apple lawsuit to hear more of that oh-so-subtle smack talk from Jobs.
[Via AppleInsider]
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Filed under: Portable Audio
Earlier this week we told you about the first tool we’ve yet heard of that strips the FairPlay DRM from the iTunes Music Store v6 tracks you bought, called QTFairUse. Unfortunately, because this tool was still very raw and in Python, so it didn’t seem entirely there yet for the rest of us; well, today we’re one step closer with myTunes, a small (50KB), simple, graphical Windows
[Thanks, Pete]
So the first thing we did was, of course, update to the very latest version of iTunes for Windows (6.0.5.20) and buy a song from the iTunes Music Store.
We love Ultravox, so we picked an appropriate song…
As you can see, we’re prepared for major cash outlays for our editorial.
Once you have your track ready to play, fire up myTunes, set your decoding path, and enable myTunes.
Then, just hit play on your DRMed track, and it will begin the DRM stripping process.
Like we said, it goes in real time, so be patient. You’ll probably want to leave this thing running overnight (hey, that’s 8 hours of un-DRMed music a day, not too bad).
Once it’s done decoding, you have to use another tool called faad.exe to construct a playable AAC ADTS file. Kinda sucks, but it only took 2.8 seconds for Hymn to get built back up. Then we moved all our files (the FairPlay DRMed file, the raw AAC file, and the reconstructed AAC file) to our other machine for testing.
As you’d expect, this is what happened with the AAC file tried to play in VLC. No go — that’s copy protection for ya!
Neither would the raw AAC file play, but that wasn’t a surprise either. The resulting file from faad worked just fine, though.
Unfortunately it had no metadata (as expected).
However, as you can see the bitrate was kept intact, and the file size was almost identical to its original. We can’t yet confirm that this was a lossless DRM stripping method, but we’d wager it is (or at least very close to it). For what it’s worth, we heard absolutely no discernable loss in sound quality. Happy fair use everybody!
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Filed under: Home Entertainment, Portable Audio
We’d probably have to take our shoes off to count all the physical formats that have been released in hopes of supplanting the J-Pop indie rock CDs on our shelf, but Warner Music Group is going to give it another go. Their new “DVD album” (not quite as exciting of a name as those SACDs or DualDiscs, but look how they turned out) features stereo and surround sound mixes of the album, along with a whole bunch extras like ringtones, remixes, photos and video footage. The real kicker is that Warner is supposedly close to a deal with Apple
[Via iLounge]
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Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds, Portable Audio, Wearables, Wireless
Alright, dear readers, you know the drill: proceed with caution. We have no confirmation here, but sometimes a tip is too juicy not to share, no matter how suspect it might be. A reader is reporting to us that a coworker's tech-unsavvy friend, who is regularly hired by Apple to do marketing photo shoots, was recently brought on to take some shots of "the sleekest, sexiest damn phone he's ever seen." The launch date? "Some time in August." Yeah, not a typo -- August. Now, to be perfectly clear, we don't know what the iPhone (if it exists) will be actually called, we've never seen a real pic of the elusive beast, and this doesn't really jive with the time frame suggested by Peter Oppenheimer's recent comments -- but we want to believe, and we don't have to wait very long for this one to get debunked or confirmed.
Alright, dear readers, you know the drill: proceed with caution. We have no confirmation here, but sometimes a tip is too juicy not to share, no matter how suspect it might be. A reader is reporting to us that a coworker’s tech-unsavvy friend, who is regularly hired by Apple
[Thanks, Frazer]
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Filed under: Portable Audio
After you've dropped more money in a vending machine than you ever thought possible, you're left wondering how to fill your new iPod
[Via Macminute]
Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | CommentsFiled under: Cellphones, Handhelds, Portable Audio, Wearables, Wireless
Apple's been dogged with rumors of an iPod / phone hybrid (the real deal, not a rehash of a Moto E398 with iTunes support) for nearly as long as the iPod's been kickin' around. Apparently looking to beat the dead horse yet again, an analyst mentioned Sony's success with their Walkman line of music-oriented phones during Apple's Q3 earnings call, prompting CFO Peter Oppenheimer to respond with a fairly solid non-denial: "As regards cell phones, we don't think that the phones that are available today make the best music players. We think the iPod is. But over time, that is likely to change. And we're not sitting around doing nothing." Knowing Apple, of course, this is about the biggest admission we'll get until the iPhone actually drops, so relish in the moment, keep your eyes peeled in a year or so, and if you're really hard up, you could fashion your own, like the pictured Nokia 6682 makeover.Filed under: Home Entertainment, Wireless, Networking
There are about a million ways to stream music from your PC to other locations in the house, and now Sony has added yet another solution to this lengthy list: the 2.1 channel CPF-IX001 wireless streaming music system. The compact device uses your existing 802.11b/g setup to pull tunes from iTunes, Windows Media Player, Sony Connect, or other applications, and creates a unique IP address so multiple units can operate simultaneously over the same network. To cut down on wire clutter, Sony employed a so-called power line transmission technology that allows the main component to send both juice and audio signals to its subwoofer over a single cable -- pretty handy, especially if you'll be moving the system from room to room.. Expect to see these in stores sometime next month -- although we don't actually know what to look for, because Sony is being a little stingy with the product pics -- for about $300.Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | CommentsFiled under: Gaming, Handhelds, Home Entertainment, Portable Audio, Portable Video, Wireless
and others in your living room, and that the company is starting to make good on its promise of turning the 360 into a true digital hub.Filed under: Portable Audio
After all sorts of protesting, name calling and backtracking, the French legislature has finally managed to pass their DRM law that could spell a bit of trouble for iTunes and other companies bent on locking down their own respective file formats. The language has been toned down a bit from the original draft, and we don’t have a new response from Apple or a hint of how this final version might be implemented, but the basic requirement of the bill is that Online music stores provide a method for users to play downloaded files on any device, as long as device manufacturers ask nicely. More recent revisions allowed some exceptions to this rule, including if the copyright holders weren’t willing to have the DRM opened up, but from the sounds of it there are industry types on both sides of the argument. Some are jumping at the chance to price DRMed songs independently of Apple
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Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video
France’s iPod law came and went, and Denmark‘s anti-iTunes Music Store pressure didn’t really seem gather a whole lot of steam; we just saw Norway turn to their own national consumer ombudsman for assistance in prying open Apple
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Filed under: Portable Audio
In a viral marketing move that’s sure to draw the fire of Applefanboys enthusiasts (probably right here in the comments, if history is any indication), SanDisk has posted a website called “iDon’t” that encourages people to flee the closed iPod
[Via iLounge forums]
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Filed under: Handsets, Motorola, Verizon Wireless, CDMA
Filed under: Portable Audio
Some six months after first announcing it, Microsoft and MTV have launched their URGE music service. The new service will be fairly similar to other subscription-based services that rely on Microsoft’s PlayForSure DRM, and will offer 2 million songs, and have a monthly fee of $9.99, or $14.99 for a “to go” version that will work with PlaysForSure-compatible audio players. Of course, URGE will have one advantage that will inevitably help it make up for its late entry to the market: integration into the next version of Windows
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Filed under: Cellphones, Portable Audio
Following a weekend of stiff-drinks and intrepid mulling, they are co-developing with Apple – officially denying it, that is. Well, kind of. See, our brethren over at Engadget Japan tell us that Softbank's response (in Japanese) to the claims made in that un-sourced Nikkei article are mere "speculation. The source is not us. We have nothing to say about it." Hmm, that sounds more like a plea to Apple not to kill the deal than a denial that they're in cahoots on the popularly dubbed, and oft speculated iPhone which is not pictured to the right.Filed under: Handsets, Multimedia, Vodafone
Following a weekend of stiff-drinks and intrepid mulling, they are co-developing with Apple – officially denying it, that is. Well, kind of. See, our brethren over at Engadget Japan tell us that Softbank’s response (in Japanese) to the claims made in that un-sourced Nikkei article are mere “speculation. The source is not us. We have nothing to say about it.” Hmm, that sounds more like a plea to Apple not to kill the deal than a denial that they’re in cahoots on the popularly dubbed, and oft speculated iPhone which is not pictured to the right.Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
Filed under: Features, Gaming, Home Entertainment, Portable Audio
, Nintendo and Microsoft — though, from the looks of things, many of our ink-stained cohorts seemed more interested in seeing how the “booth babe” ban was going. The Los Angeles Times, E3′s hometown paper, had excellent coverage overall, but that coverage was somewhat overshadowed by the booth babe reportage, which included text, a photo gallery and videos. A few miles up the coast, the San Francisco Chronicle didn’t have the Times’ wall-to-wall coverage, but still managed to pay homage to the girls of E3, pointing out that the highly publicized crackdown on the raciest attire has had results: “Where once cleavage, upper thighs and midriffs were almost impossible to avoid, they have been more or less hidden behind baby T-shirts and more-modest tank tops. And it seems like there are fewer booth babes overall.” Of course, the biggest E3 scoop by the mainstream media came from Time Magazine, with its exclusive preview of the Wii, which appeared in the magazine a full two days before the conference started. For those of us who considered ourselves lucky to get a chance to try out the new console without having to wait in line for an hour, it was a stark reminder that the MSM still have a lot of clout when it comes to getting scoops from big companies.
Elsewhere in the media, The Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg caused a stir with a column on Apple
Mossberg wasn’t the only one making controversial statements about Apple this week. Reuters reporter Duncan Martell dared to point out that you don’t really “own” music you download from the iTunes Music Store, since “owning implies control and if you bought the tracks on iTunes you don’t have complete control.” That, of course, is essential to Apple’s razor-and-blades model of linking the iPod to iTunes, but it pokes a hole in a major defense of iTMS vs. the PlaysforSure-based subscription model. After all, fans of iTMS have long stated that it’s better to own music than to “rent” it, via the subscription model. However, Martell rightly points out that you don’t really own anything you download from iTunes. You’re licensing it, as you do with software, and Apple can change the terms of that license at will.
USA Today – Videogame makers unveil the fun to come
LA Times – E3 2006
San Francisco Chronicle – Nintendo’s hot controller, booth babes under control
Time – A game for all ages
The Wall Street Journal – In our post-PC era, Apple’s device model beats the PC way
Reuters – Do you own songs bought online? Well, sort of
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Filed under: Cellphones, Portable Audio
Japanese news agency Nikkei is reporting that Apple and new Vodafone Japan owner Softbank are working together to develop cellphones capable of downloading and playing music from the iTunes store. Details are, of course, very slim at this point, as we don't even know whether to characterize this as a "true" iPhone, or simply a ROKR-like model featuring only software from the iPod manufacturer powering a non-Apple handset. However, Nikkei is quoting sources that say the phone, which may be released as early as this year (and which is definitely NOT pictured alongside this post), is expected to sport both Softbank and Apple branding, which may indicate that Cupertino will have a hand in developing the hardware as well. Whatever they're working on, we wanna know about it, and we won't rest until we have a ton of specs and pics for you.Filed under: Handsets, Multimedia, Vodafone
Japanese news agency Nikkei is reporting that Apple and new Vodafone Japan owner Softbank are working together to develop cellphones capable of downloading and playing music from the iTunes store. Details are, of course, very slim at this point, as we don’t even know whether to characterize this as a “true” iPhone, or simply a ROKR-like model featuring only software from the iPod manufacturer powering a non-Apple handset. However, Nikkei is quoting sources that say the phone, which may be released as early as this year (and which is definitely NOT pictured alongside this post), is expected to sport both Softbank and Apple branding, which may indicate that Cupertino will have a hand in developing the hardware as well. Whatever they’re working on, we wanna know about it, and we won’t rest until we have a ton of specs and pics for you.Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
