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Archive for the ‘ gadgets ’ Category

Apple announces major updates to iPod family, cuts iPhone price

Apple today announced major updates to the iPod family at its “The Beat Goes On” special event in San Francisco. The iPod shuffle saw a refresh with new colors and packaging, an all-new iPod nano was introduced, as well as the iPod classic (which replaces the original “iPod” in the company’s lineup), and the all-new iPod tou…Now this is the announcement I’ve been waiting for almost a year now. I have been waiting for that RED (PRODUCT) Shuffle and that touch screen iPod and for once it seems my predictions were right. But I’m really getting that 16GB iPod touch. It seems to be the perfect for users who already have a larger capacity hard drive but wanting an iPhone without the phone. The built-in WiFi is impressive and here’s hoping that they’ll be able to put the whole iTunes store in the wifi store. The Starbucks integration is a nice touch. The ability to buy and download the song playing in the store is impressive. I wont be surprised if other stores will follow suit. Seems like it was a bad call for NBC to move their shows off iTunes.

read more | digg story

2007: 09/06
POSTED BY: mdelamerced
CATEGORY: gadgets
TAGS: apple
iphone
ipod
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After ditching Apple, NBC opts for flex pricing and more DRM with Amazon

Showing us that it’s not all about Hulu, NBC inks a download deal with Amazon just days after the public spat between Apple and NBC. What’s Unbox got that Apple doesn’t? Flexible pricing and less “flexible” DRM.Now there must be something wrong with this picture. Why would I want to buy my videos from Unbox? Sure I love their “other” business which is selling tangible products such as books and CD’s. But their digital endeavor is somewhat “restrictive” in my opinion. I don’t mind that I can play my content only on two computers but the main fact is that I cannot play any of it on my mac or in my ipod is absolutely unacceptable.NBC isn’t charging more for their shows on Amazon (although they must be getting a bigger cut) they apparently prefer it because there’s “more DRM” than Apple. I must admit it’s still a flaky argument in their leaving the iTunes store.Most digital providers out there (other than iTunes) do not work on macs let alone the ipod. iPods account for more than 70% of the digital handheld market. The whole thing still doesn’t make sense to me.It must be frustrating to be in the movie studio/ music label industry right now that the very business model that they’ve been hanging on to since forever was turned upside down by the internet and digital conversion. And now one of the easiest ways to merge the two together was thought out by the Apple brains in Cupertino and not by them. Originally thought that it would fail they agreed to put their content on and now over 2 billion songs later, it’s not much of a struggle as it was five years ago when anarchy ensued in the digital market. If things stay the way they are now the same environment five years ago will come back much stronger.And why are we still paying for television? Why are we even having this argument? Fire up the TiVOs everyone!

read more | digg story

2007: 09/05
POSTED BY: mdelamerced
CATEGORY: gadgets
TAGS: amazon
apple
nbc
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A look back

More into the Music Industry and Apple spat.

This is a great article by ilounge.com’s Jeremy Horowitz. He cites some great talking points about the NBC-Universal-Apple spat over the iTunes Store.

And more video on how the iTunes Store got started.

2007: 09/04
POSTED BY: mdelamerced
CATEGORY: gadgets
TAGS: apple
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Rick Rubin: iPods will be obsolete

In a recent NY Times interview with music producer Rick Rubin as he predicts that iPods will be obsolete, he endorses the subscription model as used by Napster and other music rental services. MacNN also notes that David Geffen also sees the subscription model as the way to save the music industry.

Hmmm, save the music industry, but apparently not the musicians. In some ways, Mr. Rick Rubin is true. The iPod will be obsolete but not the in the foreseeable future I’m afraid. The music industry has been clueless into saving it’s business since the age of Napster (the original P2P network) and mp3 came about. It is easy to forget that this subscription model was already around even before the launch of the iPod and the iTunes Store and still it didn’t convince people to get their music from there since basically they didn’t own the music. It was like an apartment, you rent it. CRAZY!

Now that the iTunes store is quite successful in it’s own right, they just want a cut off everything. They do not see the amount of bandwidth that Apple has to pay to keep the store running. They do not see the amount of people now buying music legally. They do not see that it is not the iTunes store that drives the sales (since the iTunes store is only accessible in mostly western countries apart from Japan. It is a way for people to buy music that they can play on their iPods seamlessly. How bad it that?

Most online retailers do not support Apple’s Fairplay DRM and thus scaring away most iTunes users (iTunes comes free BTW) and how exactly would it be better for us. I don’t have a PC so if I want to buy music, I want it working on my iPod. Because that’s what I want and not what music executive wants. At the end of the day what I want mattters anyway since it’s my money being spent around.

People buy CD’s, or at least they used to. People buy music they do not rent it.

Let’s look back with the iTunes-Pepsi commercial featuring Green Day’s song and all these kids who were sued by the music industry for downloading music off the internet.

2007: 09/03
POSTED BY: mdelamerced
CATEGORY: gadgets
TAGS: apple
ipod
iTunes
music
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NBC to End iTunes Sales of Its Shows

“NBC Universal, unable to come to an agreement with Apple on pricing, has decided not to renew its contract to sell digital downloads of television shows on iTunes.”Media giants have new brilliant plan for making more money from their content: by pulling them off the most popular online music + video store.That is just so sad. For NBC-Universal that is.First it was their music and now it’s their TV shows. But then the public goes, so what? Music yes, I can understand why we have to pay for music. But paying for something that is “technically” free?? At first I was a bit skeptical of Apple’s strategy in selling TV shows through its iTunes store. I mean seriously, who would want to pay per episode of TV shows?? Apparently many people like to watch the episodes over and over again the night after it was aired. We just couldn’t wait till the end of the season to get our DVD boxed sets. We had to get the show now!! But even at the current rate of $1.99 an episode, an entire 24 episode season would set you back $48 and the DVD would only cost around $35. By jacking up the prices to $4.99, a whole season would cost over a hundred dollars. Ridiculous. And TV was supposed to be free. NBC/ Universal is trying to alienate the very users who saved some of their shows from cancellation. Their attitude towards music is spreading through their video distribution and it’s pretty obvious that the music industry is doomed to fail if they don’t embrace the digital technology of today. Just as music was stolen, NBC/ Universal better understand that that content was aired free to begin with. And viewing episodes online on their website doesn’t help their case either.

read more | digg story

2007: 08/31
POSTED BY: mdelamerced
CATEGORY: gadgets
TAGS: apple
iTunes
nbc
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So long ATRAC, thanks for nothing

In case you missed it, Sony’s CONNECT music services based on the ATRAC audio format is finally — at long last — coming to an end. In North America and Europe, anyway.Unfortunately for the electronics giant, it’s a little too late for them to do so. The damage has already been done and the iPod rules the portable music device market and Sony isn’t even anywhere near it. I was willing to get on the mini disc bandwagon when cassette was about to die and CDs were still expensive to burn. But Sony did not develop ATRAC for the mac and I just waited for the iPod to come out and hence all my music is on Apple’s device. With Sony releasing new devices that now support the more common format, MP3, we’ll see if they can still change their fortunes around for the very back of the competition.

read more | digg story

2007: 08/30
POSTED BY: mdelamerced
CATEGORY: gadgets
TAGS: Sony
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iPhone Unlocked!

While I am not surprised that the iPhone has been finally unlocked for use with other services, I am however surprised that it took this long for the device to be freed. As the video (even if it is being somewhat blurred) below will show, the iPhone has ben unlocked.

So what does this mean for everyone else? I am now even more tempted to get an iPhone if it will work with my local carrier. This is absolutely great news. But sadly the legal ramifications are now underway in preventing the release of this software. But is there enough legal muscle that you would have to go to each and every country in the world to prevent the sale of this software. Is it really worth the trouble for the guys who developed the unlocking software and Apple to go after each and every corner of the Earth over it?

Whether AT&T or Apple is able to stop the release of the iPhone unlocker, it merely delays the inevitable. Phones are going to be hacked (unlocked that is) in any and every way possible. My phones are currently locked to my carrier in my country. But nothing prevents me from going across the street to have it unlocked.

Let’s face it, we’re going to have iPhones in our hands much sooner than expected.

2007: 08/29
POSTED BY: mdelamerced
CATEGORY: gadgets
TAGS: apple
ATT
iphone
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Wow it’s been a long time since I posted

of course counting THE DAYS THAT MY STUPID DSL HAS BEEN OFF THE HOOK WHILE GETTINGLAME CUSTOMER SERVICE AT THE SAME TIME AND WONDERING WHY IT TAKES THE LARGEST PHONE COMPANY IN THE COUNTRY A WEEK TO FIX MY STUPID DSL.

end of rant

I just had to get that out of my chest. It’s the single thing that I hate most. I can stand a day or two. But a week??? There should be a law that makes that a crime.

Anyhoo, here we are again and so much has happened since my last post. The iPhone madness has finally simmered down in the United States while other countries are eagerly awaiting their iPhones (Count me as one of them). 80GB PS3 are shipping soon. Xbox discloses failure rate of consoles and extending the warranty on all consoles for 3 years whoch will cost them $1.5 Billion. Xbox chief moves to EA. Ratatouille breaks new ground in animation and storytelling. Town hall meeting at Apple later today. Will you still buy stuff “made in China”? And so on. Not bad for a month.

July had to be the my most emailed month ever. I just archived my email and it basically took a lot.

Square-Enix announces the Final Fantasy Fan Festival to be held in Anaheim this November and I’m planning on going. I’m serious about it as well. I’ve never been to one before. The last time I did something like this was attending Wondercon in the Bay area years ago when I was still into comic books. I still am actually but now I mostly collect Japanese manga. I’m so excited. I don’t plan on wearing a costume to the event. I’m just there for the fun.

Until my next post. Later everyone.

2007: 08/07
POSTED BY: mdelamerced
CATEGORY: gadgets
TAGS: stuff
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I’m starting to want one

I’m not a phone person. I was a PDA person before (my one and only PDA was a Palm IIIc, this first color one) but now I’m back to paper and pencils. I liked my Palm. It was fast and fun and could recognize handwriting. I took down notes of my meetings on it and stored all of my friends’ numbers and addresses on it. But back then I had no computer to call my own. But now I do but sadly Palm has gone into a different direction altogether and I don’t want to go there. I have a Smart Phone but I don’t use the calendar. I have iCal files on my mac but I don’t use it either to sync with my lifestyle. I’ve reverted to paper. I’ve held the long belief that it is difficult if not impossible to merge various devices into one. That even if it was merged, one function will suffer and the whole device won’t be a thing of joy.

Then here comes Apple and their iPhone. I must admit that I was impressed when Steve Jobs unveiled the device in January. It was a thing of beauty and elegance at first glance but does the design match the function of the device. Sure we saw it underneath a glass case at the Moscone Center but we wanted to know how that screen felt like when you touched it. Sure it was a cool device and a lot of people, especially the mac faithful wanted one. But I wasn’t entirely convinced.

A week later and it seems that the phone matches the hype. Others are calling it the “Jesus Phone”. For US consumers, it fits the bill but savvy Asians and Europeans where the phone market is a lot more complicated, it is lacking in a lot of areas. #g, HSDPA, video recording, zoom capability, MMS and so on. But I’m pretty sure that these features will be in the versions coming out in November and 1Q 2008.

But for now, I’m pretty much bent on getting one for myself when it comes out here locally. And I’m planning on getting all the bells and whistles with it. Prepare to be redeemed.