Back in 2001 I had a rich friend in tampa - worth about 40 million showing me stuff about ipods - he was a big aapl shareholder and had all kinds of inside tracks to these guys - he always seems to make money wether i win or lose - having friends in the right places is a great money making strategy - he was one of the first people on the planet to get an ipod I think - rhapsody is trying to give away FREE songs though - so I don't know how much longer itunes can hold the throne?
slashdot.org
RealNetworks Invests in Legitimizing Free Music
Posted by timothy on Wednesday April 27, @05:01AM
from the hammers-not-only-for-murder dept.
Rollie Hawk writes "Want some free music? Silly question, I know. But how about legally? That's exactly what RealNetworks is offering. You may remember RealNetworks from about ten years ago when it was one of the leaders in audio streaming technology. After a decade of steaming becoming more widespread in both audience and medium, RealNetworks' RealPlayer has become an embarrassment to even try installing. This, however, didn't stop them from jumping into the post-Napster song-swapping vacuum with their Rhapsody program. I can't comment on how good Rhapsody is since I've never met anyone who used it. That probably says enough right there. In an attempt to rev-up their subscription-based music service, they are now resorting to giving away 25 songs each month. According to RealNetworks chairman and chief executive Rob Glaser, "by having a free service that is legal, it flattens the issue of 'Why use an illegal service?'" Perhaps that logic would hold more weight if the universe of music contained only 25 songs."
RealNetworks restores Harmony to the iPod >
Related entries: Portable Audio
engadget.com
Ah, how RealNetworks’ vindication must be tasting sweet today; late last year they vowed to restore iPod compatibility to their FairPlay-like Harmony DRM system, enabling non-iTunes Music Store vendors (well, only them, really) to sell music to iPod owners. We haven’t heard much about it since after Apple’s fateful firmware update, until today, when Real announced they’re restoring full Harmony compatibility. Doesn’t seem like this is going to much affect their new Rhapsody To Go service they announced yesterday, but we’ll see what other tricks they’ve got up their sleeve, and more importantly, how Apple’s going to hit back.
Alright, not only did those leaked pics of Nokia’s new two megapixel musicphone turn out to be legit, they actually introduced the phone today, which was way sooner than we’d anticipated. The Nokia N91 is part of Nokia’s new media-centric N series, and apparently they’re throwing down against Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and Samsung and putting a 4GB hard drive in there, an industry standard 3.5mm headphone jack, support for playback of MP3, M4A, AAC, and WMA audio files, and USB 2.0 so you can just drag and drop your files over from your PC. Better still, the N91 has 3G (WCDMA) and both built-in WiFi and Bluetooth. Should be out sometime around the end of the year.
I use an Iriver flash player myself - can't afford a hard drive dropping and breaking in the bigger ipods and others - need flash memory - hehe. 40 hours playtime on my rayovac 15 minute reachargeables - its great. |
