Rhapsody Hops on the DRM-Free Bandwagon
2008-06-30 18:07:58
And another legal alternative to iTunes. Rhapsody announced today their new service, "Music Without Limits." It basically emulates the model of iTunes, selling music at 99cents a pop and $9.99 an album. Oh, and did I already say? It's DRM-free!
According to the press release , Realnetworks, the company behind Rhapsody is making it easier for people to decide what to do with their music. DRM-free means customers can use the music anywhere. Moreover, Realnetworks has partnered with music labels to distribute music on the Rhapsody music store including the big four Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, and EMI — and an extensive number of independent labels.
"Until now, legal digital music has suffered from severe limitations on where consumers could buy it and how they could use it," said Rob Glaser, chairman and CEO of RealNetworks. "‘Music Without Limits,' fixes those problems and will make digital music easier and more valuable for consumers. Rhapsody is proud to be partnering with some of the most innovative companies of our time, including: iLike, Yahoo!, MTV Networks, and Verizon Wireless, to connect consumers with digital music wherever they are and however they want it." ...more
2008-06-30 17:50:43
Seth MacFarlane and Google Try Out a New Video Distribution Platform
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Google will be trying out a new way of distributing both videos and ads. Google AdSense is now probably the best advertising platform that can reach a specific demographic at any given time. It's infrastructure that lets Google and its publishers and advertisers all make money have been the lifeline of the Web2.0 revolution making sites self reliant instead of big-air-filled IPO's.
Anyway, that same infrastructure will now be used in an experiment of Google on video distribution (and an enhancement of ad serving as well). In partnership with the creator of Fox's popular cartoon series The Family Guy, Seth MacFarlane, a new cartoon series will be shown, not on tv, but only on web sites that Google Adsense thinks its target demographic would go.
Let's break that down a bit. Google and Seth MacFarlane will be producing a new show. The show will run on the Google Adsense network, meaning only where there are Google ads. Of course, not all sites with Adsense targets the shows key demographic, according to the NY Times , "typically young men," so the new cartoon series will only be shown where Google's contextual algorithm thinks it's appropriate. ...more
It seems like everything familiar to us is leaving or ending at Microsoft. First Bill Gates bows out and thanks his employees with tears in his eyes , and now, the OS that's been the Microsoft flagship since 2003 and crowd darling still since Vista, is also bowing out. Today, Microsoft will stop making making their popular OS Windows XP.
It's been scheduled for a couple of years now and Steve Ballmer did announce that this day would come. But if you ask the world, I bet they'll say, "Why not stop producing Windows Vista instead?" But no, Microsoft is still a private corporation and it's not up to the public to decide which they'll continue to produce and discontinue.
So despite protests and a lot of rantings, Windows Vista will be the Microsoft Flagship until Windows 7 comes along sometime in 2009 (maybe). ...more
The day has finally come. As the cliche goes, it's an end of an era. However, that cliche is probably what everyone would say when the man who made computers as we know it today possible. Let's take a while to thank Bill Gates for all that he's done.
Don't get me wrong, Bill Gates and his Microsoft may not be the best company ever, but we can never deny that Microsoft and Bill Gates changed the world in more ways than we could ever possibly imagine.
So on Bill Gates' last day as a full time employee at Microsoft, let's review that video we saw at CES 2008 and compare that with his cracking voice and heartwarming farewell speech he gave his employees.
Video: Bill Gates' Last Day - CES Clip ...more
Bill Gates, the Harvard University dropout who foresaw 33 years ago that personal computers would revolutionize the world, spends his last official full-time work at Microsoft on Friday.
However, Gates will remain the chairman of the company's board of directors and will work about once every week at Microsoft. The leader, whose nerdy looks and boyish face become the symbol of the the US software juggernaut, remains Microsoft's largest shareholder.
After more than three decades of leading Microsoft, Gates announced he will devote his full attention to the foundation he established with his wife, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Holding the distinction as the wealthiest charity around the world, the foundation aims to help reduce global poverty and improve health care. ...more
Microsoft is planning to acquire semantic search engine Powerset for a whopping $100 million (though lose change for the software giant). Having failed to acuire Yahoo, Microsoft has been on a shopping spree to beef up its services. Powerset, the latest Microsoft acquisition, is a natural language search engine that analyzes questions instead of keywords in a search query.
The acquisition of Powerset is intended to beef up Microsoft's own struggling search engine Live Search which ranks at number three trailing Yahoo and Google at the top spot with more than 60% of the search market.
As a natural language or semantic search engine, Powerset focuses its attention on Wikipedia articles instead of every other article on the web. It is, one can say, a Wikipedia search engine. However, aside from just searching Wikipedia, Powerset also has technologies that analyze questions instead of just keywords. hence the "semantic" in its description. ...more
Virgin Mobile has acquired Helio for $39 Million in stock. Helio is a cell phone carrier in the US that's not had the best run. The goal of Helio was to bring high end high tech South Korean mobile phones to the US market. However, American technophiles were not that impressed nor compelled to hop on the carrier. They had 170,000 subscribers.
SK Telecom, a South Korean carrier and the major stock holder in Helio agreed to the Virgin Mobile USA's purchase of Helio for $39 million in stock. Moreover, SK Telecom and Virgin Group will each invest $25 million in Virgin Mobile consequently making SK Telecom owner of 17% of Virgin Mobile.
The Helio brand will be consumed by Virgin Mobile while all of Helio's stores will be closing down except for their flagship in New York which will be rebranded into Virgin Mobile. ...more
Chrysler will be bringing mobile internet into their cars this coming 2009. They are calling this in-car internet connectivity UConnect.
The UConnect will be available on most of Chrysler's 2009 models including Chrysler 300, Aspen, PT Cruiser, Sebring and Town & Country; Dodge Avenger, Grand Caravan, Caliber, Challenger, Charger, Dakota, Durango, Journey, Nitro, and Ram; Jeep(R) Grand Cherokee, Commander, Compass, Liberty and Patriot.
Of course this feature won't come standard but on a hefty add on the standard retail price. Moreover, those who will avail of the UConnect enabled vehicles will still have to pay monthly subscriptions to telecommunications companies since the UConnect is a 3G-WiFi connection. ...more
The Internet's regulating organization ICANN , has just approved a proposal that will pave the way to fully customized top level domain names (TLD's). This means that URLs are no longer limited to .com, or .gov or .org or any other TLD we see today. By next year, ICANN will be approving TLD's that are virtually anything.
However, it's not going to be open to everybody. ICANN is pushing that these new TLD is for big businesses only. Registering a customized TLD would require the applicants to provide proof that they have a "business plan and technical capability" while a review board makes sure that the suffix is not offensive, and is not a copyright infringement. The registration fee starts at $100,000 and sky's the limit.
So these new customized top level domains will be for the big companies like www.live.microsoft or Microsoft.com could simply be Micro.soft. IT just occurred to me, it's weird to type those URLs. ...more
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