Jan 17

Is DRM Finally on the Way Out?

Posted in: Apple, itunes, Microsoft, Screenshots, Today's Chili, Web Sites

This article was written on April 27, 2007 by CyberNet.

DRM FreePretty big news was just released by MacRumors.com which mentions a recent notice that Apple sent out to all iTunes partners who sell music on the iTunes store. The message said:

Many of you have reached out to iTunes to find out how you can make your songs available higher quality and DRM-free. Starting next month, iTunes will begin offering higher-quality, DRM-free music and DRM-free music videos to all customers.

That’s right! Apple will be offering music publishers the chance to make their content DRM-free! Is this finally the momentum that is needed to fully eliminate DRM? I’m thinking that it could be since companies and artists will want to compete with each other.

All of this has started because EMI (an independent music company in London) drew up a deal to have their entire catalog of music placed on iTunes store without the DRM, and at higher quality. That is something many independent artists have requested since it will encourage users to buy their music.

Now we just have to hope that this will spark a domino effect…and that DRM will come tumbling down!

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Jan 16

WrapUp: Hulu Blocks Google TV, TinyUmbrella Updated, and More

Posted in: Apple, HP, hulu, itunes, Opera, Today's Chili, webos, windows 7, windows phone 7 series, WrapUp, xbox, YouTube

This article was written on October 25, 2010 by CyberNet.

Welcome to the WrapUp by CyberNet. This is a collection of news stories, downloads, and tips that we have collected over the last few days, but never got around to writing about. Don’t forget to send in your own tips, or just leave a comment on this page if you think you’ve got something we should include.

–News–

hp slate.jpgHP Slate Will Cost $799
Engadget has both some images and a video of the HP Slate in action, which will run you a cool $799 when it is released. Specs include a 1.86GHz Atom processor, 2GB of RAM, and a 64GB SSD for storage.


apple event.jpgSummary of Apple Announcements
 If you haven’t read about all of Apple’s announcements last week this will get you up-to-speed on the new MacBook Air, OS X Lion, Mac App Store, and iLife ’11.


windows 7 boot.jpgWindows 7 Sells 240 Million Licenses
Microsoft announced that in the first year of availability they’ve sold over 240 million licenses of the Windows 7 OS, which makes it the fastest selling operating system in history.


office 365.jpgMicrosoft Office 365 Available Next Year
The cloud-based Microsoft Office 365 will offer online versions of the Office suite for a monthly fee starting next year.


hp webos 2.jpgHP Unveils webOS 2.0
The next generation of Palm Pre and webOS will include things like Flash Player, Skype, an updated Facebook app, and many enhancements throughout the entire operating system.


hulu google tv.jpgHulu Blocks Google TV
Google TV users might be a little discouraged to find out that Hulu doesn’t work, at least for right now. There was a modification you could make to change the user agent, but that has since been plugged by Hulu. So you’ll just have to wait for the Hulu Plus subscription service to be made available.


xbox homepage.jpgXbox.com Gets an Update
The redesigned Xbox.com now has a browser based Avatar editor, the ability to play web games with your Xbox LIVE friends, and more.


iphone space.jpgDad and Son Send HD Camera and iPhone to Space
A father/son duo created a nice weather balloon rig that reached a maximum altitude of 100,000 feet, and captured it all on video. Thanks to the onboard iPhone they were able to retrieve the balloon about 30-miles from where it launched.


–Tips, Tutorials, and Reviews–

insomnia.jpgInsomnia Keeps Your PC Awake
Windows users can download this handy little utility if they want to prevent their computer from going to sleep. As long as the window remains open the PC will remain in “insomnia” mode.


windows phone 7.jpgAnandtech’s In-Depth Windows Phone 7 Review
If you enjoy reading long and detailed reviews about gadgets this is one you won’t want to miss. It covers just about every aspect of the new mobile OS.


aero weather.jpgChange Your Aero Color Based on Weather Temperature
Windows 7/Vista users can enjoy this nice free app that will adjust the color of the Aero glass to match the current temperature outside.


opera 11 extensions.jpgOpera 11 Alpha Available with Sample Extensions
The testing phase of the next major Opera milestone has begun, and there are some sample extensions available for you to take for a spin.


emailtray-1.jpgDesktop Email Notifications for Outlook, Gmail, Hotmail, and More
This free utility will let you monitor and manage messages from all of your email accounts.


vplayer.jpgPlay Most Video Types on Android with VPlayer
The free VPlayer app for Android lets users watch videos in DivX, Xvid, MKV, WMV, FLV, and RMVB formats.


downloadtube.jpgNo Hassle Way to Download and Convert YouTube Videos
The DownloadTube.org site lets you paste in a link to any YouTube video, and have it converted into a more widely supported video format.


mediarover.jpgKeep iTunes Libraries in Sync with MediaRover
MediaRover is a free Windows and Mac utility that will keep your songs and playlists in sync across multiple machines.


keysharky.jpgKeySharky Adds Hotkey Support to Grooveshark
 Firefox and Chrome users can grab an add-on that provides customizable hotkey support for the Grooveshark music streaming site.


tiny umbrella.jpgTinyUmbrella Updated for iOS Users
TinyUmbrella is a free app used to save your SHSH blobs so that you can rollback to an older version of iOS if needed. The app has been updated to include a new UI, and has some other features that are pretty nice.


–Downloads–

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Jan 14

Apple Drops iTunes Plus Prices to 99 Cents!

Posted in: amazon, Apple, itunes, Music, Today's Chili, Web Sites

This article was written on October 17, 2007 by CyberNet.

itunes plus music Oh the benefits of competition are a sweet thing, really! It took Apple approximately three weeks to respond to the launch of Amazon’s DRM-Free Music Store. It was a simple as this- Amazon started selling DRM-free songs for 89 cents to a maximum of 99 cents while Apple’s iTunes was selling DRM-free songs for $1.29. When we wrote about the whole Amazon deal, we said that Amazon’s move may have actually caused Steve Jobs to get a bit concerned now that iTunes has a real competitor, and it appears this was true. Apple made the official announcement today that DRM-free songs from iTunes Plus will now be sold at 99 cents, obviously to match the competition.

Prior to this change, users were able to upgrade their DRM-infested songs to the DRM-free version for 30 cents, the difference between what they originally paid for the song (99 cents) and what the going rate for DRM-free was at the time ($1.29), which made sense. From the sounds of it though, Apple is still going to charge users the 30 cents if they want to upgrade, despite the fact that there’s no difference in price between songs from iTunes and iTunes Plus. This hasn’t been confirmed, so if you decide you want to upgrade some of your songs to DRM-free, let us know if you were still charged the 30 cents.

All that’s left to say is, YAY for competition! For once Apple was left squirming and had to respond, and thankfully they did!

Source: Ars

Thanks for the tip Cory!

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Jan 14

Apple Offering up $10,000 to 10 Billionth Downloader

Posted in: Apple, itunes, Today's Chili

app store apple.jpg

What would you do with a $10,000 iTunes gift card? That’s a lot of Ke$ha singles and fart apps. Apple is giving away just that to the luck person who downloads the 10 billionth app from its App Store.

The company is well on track to hit that milestone–as of this morning, around 9.76 billion apps had been downloaded. Giving away a boatload of free downloads is likely only helping the counter spin away.

There are some rules of course–users are limited to 25 downloads a day, automated software will disqualify you, and you’ve got to agree to let you name and image be used for Apple promotion.

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Jan 14

Apple nears ten billion downloads in App Store, should hit it without Verizon’s help

Posted in: app, Apple, AppStore, itunes, Software, Today's Chili

For whatever reason, Apple has a thing with ten billion. The outfit served up its ten billionth iTune right around this time last year, and more importantly, served its one billionth app in April of 2009. In just 1.5 years, the company has seen that figure soar nearly tenfold, which is impressive no matter how you slice it. Of course, we’re quite curious to know if this includes duplicate downloads, app updates and just free or paid apps, but regardless, there’s no question that Cupertino (and quite a few developers) are raking it in. Of course, the explosion of the iPad certainly helped boost the download frequency, and if we had to guess, we’d say it’ll take even less time to double up this milestone. You know, once next month happens. Oh, and if you get lucky enough, you could score a $10,000 iTunes gift card if you just so happen to download the ten billionth app — make sure it’s a good one.

[Thanks, Ali]

Apple nears ten billion downloads in App Store, should hit it without Verizon’s help originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 14 Jan 2011 15:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jan 13

Wikipedia celebrates 10th anniversary, co-founder Jimmy Wales opines on app stores

Posted in: app, Apple, application, apps, free, itunes, Online, Today's Chili

Did you know that Wikipedia is celebrating its 10th anniversary this week? It is, on January 15th! It’s hard to believe that the ‘edited by the everyman’ encyclopedia has been around that long… or maybe we’re just getting old. Either way, co-founder of the site (and man of many personal appeals) Jimmy Wales took the opportunity to answer some questions about the past, present and future of Wikipedia, and, when asked about the growing prevalence of mobile apps and app stores, well, Wales had plenty to say, including that models such as the iTunes app store can represent a dangerous “chokepoint” and that they could be “a threat to a diverse and open ecosystem.” He also added that mobile devices are owned by people, and those people should control their own devices. We can see where Jimmy’s coming from in some ways — apps are a wholly new, untested way of ingesting content, but we have a hard time swallowing wholesale that the app store model could threaten internet freedom more than an issue such as net neutrality. But you know, if you ask us nicely, Jimmy, we might just take your word for it. Hit up the ‘more coverage’ link to check out a video of Jimmy Wales waxing philosophical about the birthday celebration.

Wikipedia celebrates 10th anniversary, co-founder Jimmy Wales opines on app stores originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Jan 2011 13:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jan 13

Shazam, Spotify Team Up

Posted in: iPhone, itunes, MP3 Digital Audio, Today's Chili

Thumbnail image for spotify_logo-copy1.jpg

Music tagging service Shazam is getting a powerful new ally–the popular European music service Spotify. Says Spotify head, Daniel Ek of the deal, “Now if you hear a great new track you can identify it, listen to it instantly in its entirety and easily add it to your music collection. That’s pretty powerful stuff.”

Spotify will be added to the list of services that users can purchase identified music from, alongside bigger stores like Amazon and iTunes.

Spotify was founded in Sweden in 2006. Unlike Shazam, which has made major waves in the US, courtesy of its iPhone app, the service has yet to break into this country, a market still almost entirely dominated by Apple’s music service. The service has become popular quite quickly in its native continent, however. 

No word on whether this European deal will help speed up the service’s arrival in the States.

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Jan 10

Windows Phone 7 can now act as a WiFi remote control for iTunes

Posted in: app, Apple, application, audio, itunes, Music, remote, remote control, RemoteControl, Today's Chili, wifi, windows phone, windows phone 7, WindowsPhone, WindowsPhone7, Wp7

Got iTunes? Got a Windows Phone 7 device? Then you’ll probably want to check out the new Remote app in the Marketplace. It promises to make the two sing in perfect harmony by making them talk over a WiFi connection. There’s a basic set of iTunes controls at your WP7 phone’s disposal, including volume, starting /stopping music, and searching by album, artist, and song, and a corresponding piece of desktop software you need to install to make the magic happen. It’s compatible with both Windows (XP and above) and Mac OS (10.5.8 and above), so all you really need now are $1.99 for the mobile app and the overwhelming desire to control your playlists remotely.

Windows Phone 7 can now act as a WiFi remote control for iTunes originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 10 Jan 2011 19:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jan 10

iTunes celebrates its 10th birthday, still takes too long to sync your iPhone

Posted in: Apple, itunes, Software, Today's Chili, video

If you’ve managed to use any piece of technology for ten years, it’s safe to say that said piece has some serious lasting power in an era filled with flavors-of-the-week. It’s a bit startling to think that Apple’s iTunes has now fallen into that category, but sure enough, the music-turned-media-application is now a decade old. Fittingly enough, it just hit version 10.0 a few months ago, and it may very well be tweaked to play nice with an all new device later this week. Head on past the break for a look at the very first iTunes introduction at Macworld 2001, and then think about how many times you’ve hated your life as you watched that sync progress bar crawl along at glacial speeds. No, seriously, think about it.

Continue reading iTunes celebrates its 10th birthday, still takes too long to sync your iPhone

iTunes celebrates its 10th birthday, still takes too long to sync your iPhone originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 10 Jan 2011 12:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jan 06

Video Streaming Service Coming From Amazon

Posted in: amazon, itunes, Movies, Today's Chili, Web Sites

This article was written on May 28, 2008 by CyberNet.

amazon streaming movies.pngThe Al l Things D conference is going on right now and one of the most interesting things to come from it was when Walt Mossburg was interviewing Jeff Bezos, founder, president, and chief executive offer of Amazon.com. Bezos announced that within the next couple of weeks, Amazon will be launching a streaming movie service that users will pay for. Bezos was quoted as saying, “We are working on a new version of video on demand, a for-pay streaming service we will release in the next couple of weeks. The streaming service will start instantly and it’s a la carte, for pay.” To clarify, this new streaming movie service would be separate from Amazon Unbox (a download service).

Amazon sure likes competing, don’t they? It is nice for us consumers that there are multiple sites out there to choose from. Bezos says he’s serious about music and video downloads. Now we’re left with a few questions like how much will movies cost to stream and how many titles will they have available in their library? Oh, and we can’t forget how recent the titles were either. Hopefully they’ll have more recently released movies available as well as some of the older ones. These are all things that could make em’ or break em’!

Source: Gizmodo

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