Apple slaps 'chrome' on the back of iPod Touch, remakes nano
At a press event in San Francisco Tuesday morning, CEO Steve Jobs took the gift wrap off Apple's holiday line of iPods, calling them the "strongest holiday lineup yet" -- stronger in part because of a backing that's not shiny plastic.
The rumors of Steve Jobs' death, the CEO himself proclaimed this morning, were greatly exaggerated; but the rumors of the new iPod nano form factor appear to have been spot on.
Amazon opens its MP3 store to independent sellers
Today, Amazon announced its indie publishing service CreativeSpace is now tied with its MP3 shop, allowing independent artists and labels to release DRM-free materials in Amazon's MP3 store.
Artists can set up an account on CreateSpace and sell their materials with no upfront charges; however, accounts are arranged in such a way that money is not directly distributed to artists. Instead, royalty checks are given out with expenses subtracted.
Microsoft makes FM radio the center of new Zune feature
In the latest attempt to further differentiate itself from the iPod, the Zune will now be able to tag songs from FM radio and purchase the music directly from its marketplace.
Microsoft's latest enhancements to its forthcoming Zune models take advantage of two previously included features: the wireless connectivity and built in FM tuner. Called "Buy from FM," the listener will be able to use the RDS data to identify tracks and download it if a wireless connection is available.
Adobe announces its new e-bookstore software
Following yesterday's big announcements in the E-paper category, Adobe this morning announced Content Server 4, server-side software for copy protecting, selling and lending eBooks for Adobe Digital Editions.
Adobe's Content Server 4 lets independent publishers, bookstores, or libraries encode, host, share and sell their eBooks. Each hosted eBook can be assigned its own permissions, allowing shoppers for example, to borrow an eBook with an encoded expiration date, or to buy one outright which can be printed or shared between devices.
Joost to toss its standalone console for a browser plug-in
Facing growing competition in the online TV space, the well-funded brainchild of Skype's co-founders will now transition its development efforts away from an interactive console, and towards something like a conventional media player.
Joost, the online TV start-up launched by Skype's two co-founders, has now decided its drop its long-time P2P desktop client project in favor of writing a plug-in to standard Web browsers. BetaNews has learned the company recently sent out an e-mail to "a small group of trusted Joost users" asking them to try out a "new version" of its software.
Virtualization: While Microsoft loses more time, VMware loses more execs
We've been told virtualization is the fastest evolving sector of the computing industry. But now, VMware is running on autopilot without its key scientists, and Microsoft hopes another delay won't hurt it too much.
In advance of a major virtualization trade show in Las Vegas next week, two of the industry's key players will most definitely not be firing on all cylinders. Smartly diffusing a potential powder keg by letting the news out yesterday at its own show, Microsoft demonstrated live migration, a very long awaited key feature of its hardware-supported Hyper-V virtualization suite, only to tell attendees it wasn't actually coming to a data center near you until at least 2010.
Evidence tabs will get more attention in future Firefox releases
Google's Chrome developers -- some of whom have worked, and are still working, on Firefox -- acknowledged their debt of gratitude for Firefox's inspiration. But today's latest development in Firefox 3.1 suggests it's now playing catch-up.
Last week's release of Google Chrome placed a new emphasis on the tab as the repository for a Web browser, rather than the Web browser as the central location for tabs. Whether or not that catches on, the concept may be compelling developers to treat tabs more seriously, and the latest alpha build of Firefox 3.1 is an indication of this.
Microsoft will spend $8 B to catch up in cloud computing
In announcing three new virtualization products today, a top Microsoft official outlined a new Microsoft "vision statement," to be supported by $8 billion in annual software R&D spending across entertainment, Vista, and cloud computing.
Although Microsoft "is not the leader" on the consumer side of software for cloud computing, the company stands way above everyone else on the business side of that equation, maintained Kevin Turner, Microsoft's COO, in a keynote speech at today's "Get Virtual Now" conference in Bellevue, Washington.
Esquire 'beta tests' an animated magazine cover
To celebrate its 75th anniversary, ever-urbane magazine Esquire will include "disposable" electronic paper display (EPD) panels in its October 2008 issue.
The same magazine that has featured John Wayne with angel wings, and Muhammad Ali as St. Sebastian, proclaims "The 21st Century Begins Now," with its E Ink cover insert. The display is provided by E Ink Corp., the company responsible for providing displays for every other commercially available "e-paper" device.
Now it's BizTalk Server 2009, with a shorter market lifespan
Set for release early next year, the next version of BizTalk Server will now be named accordingly by Microsoft, which now promises to release its business logic software on a more predictable schedule.
The next major release of BizTalk Server -- newly renamed BizTalk Server 2009 -- is still slated for delivery in the first half of 2009, and Microsoft claims that additional releases of the application server will begin to follow every two years, starting with a product dubbed BizTalk Server 7.
Analyst: Even against the iPhone, RIM still gains market share
As Apple ramped down shipments of its first-generation iPhone, it actually lost market share to BlackBerry manufacturer Research in Motion (RIM), according to the latest Gartner report.
RIM doubled its market share to 17.4 percent, selling 5.6 million devices in the April to June quarter, states the Gartner report. This was up from 2.5 million a year ago, and the marked increase likely has a lot to do with RIM's new push beyond business customers and into the consumer market.
New opposition mounts to Google ads on Yahoo
The Association of National Advertisers sent a letter to the Justice Department on Sunday, citing antitrust concerns over the proposed partnership between search leaders Yahoo and Google.
The ANA represents about 400 companies that spend about $100 billion annually on advertising. It represents and protects the interests of its members, while also advocating good advertising practices.
Tomorrow's critical Windows updates may focus on multimedia exploit
The software most affected by a quartet of updates to be released by Microsoft tomorrow morning, is our only clue to the possibility of a remote code vulnerability in multimedia files that may never have been reported elsewhere.
By number, four seems like a pretty small quantity for monthly Windows security updates, and that's the number Windows administrators and users will start seeing in their regular updates tomorrow, the second Tuesday of the month.
Personal top-level domains try to bridge communication gaps
The new .mp and .tel top-level domains, intended to serve as vehicle for personal identification, are being premiered this week. Though similar in purpose, the two are very different in function.
Telnic has marketed its .tel domain almost like a ".tel-ephone book," where the user keeps the personal domain as an updatable contact sheet. It provides a simple back end interface with contact information fields (physical address, mobile number, skypeid, email, weblink, fax, IM, etc.) which can be filled in and published.
AT&T wireless customers get Yahoo OneSearch
Yahoo and AT&T began a planned partnership on Monday that brings the search engine's mobile-centric search platform to the carrier's customers.
AT&T has worked with Yahoo for quite some time, extending back to 2001 when the company signed a shared-revenue agreement for the telco's broadband services in select areas. And since February 2006, AT&T's wireless arm -- then Cingular -- has had a
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