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Youth Want a Music Subscription Service
Tweet Share on Facebook June 18, 2008 CommentMaybe the music labels are on to something. As they struggle to embrace a digital world, their execs have a keen interest in subscription services, in which they would sell access to all their tunes for a monthly or even one-time fee. Yet it seems consumers haven't bought into the idea. Subscription services like Rhapsody struggle to gain a foothold.
But young listeners like the idea, according to a new British survey. The poll of young people ages 14 to 22 was conducted on behalf of British Music Rights, a group that represents music writers and publishers. The authors conclude that young music lovers want a simple system in which they pay a monthly fee to access, enjoy, and swap music with others.
Digital trading has helped fan interest in music of all kinds, the survey points out. So the question is how the industry can get paid for making the music without stifling the fervor fanned by file sharing, CD burning, and other forms of swapping.
Young listeners are willing to pay. But they'd like it to be a simple, flat fee to, say, Internet providers or cellphone carriers. Then they want full rights to move the music to other devices, including those of friends.
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Firefox Upgrade Roars Out of the Gate
Tweet Share on Facebook June 18, 2008 Comment (3)Firefox 3.0 appears to be off to a roaring start. The new version already accounts for 3 to 5 percent of active browsers, according to a counter run by Net Applications. That means that perhaps a quarter of Firefox users have upgraded, calculates Josh Catone at the ReadWriteWeb blog, despite early problems at the download site.
The new Firefox has been working great for me. I love the bigger "back" button. It's a simple change that makes so much sense. Is there any button that we use more on a browser?
I'm always surprised how many people still rely on Internet Explorer just because it's pre-installed on Windows. Everyone depends too much on a browser to not consider alternatives.
I dabble with IE, as well as Apple's Safari and Opera. They're fine browsers. But I'm a committed Firefox fan, partly because of its versatility. It seems to have the most useful add-ons that are free, such as Tab Mix Plus for managing tabs within a window.
Oddly, Firefox says that particular add-on isn't supported in the browser's new version. But it's important enough to me that I sought out the author's site, where I found assurances it would work. That's just one of the bumps in trying software that's brand new. But despite my posting of yesterday, I'm happy with the upgrade—and happy that it hasn't locked up yet.
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Study Says GPS Makes for Safer Drivers
Tweet Share on Facebook June 17, 2008 CommentI've wondered if slapping a navigation device above my dashboard is a safe move. Convenient, yes, but it seems to be another distraction in the car's cockpit.
Relax, says a study commissioned by GPS maker TomTom. In fact, drivers appear more relaxed with a device guiding them, as well as more in control and more alert. That's even though many admit to fiddling with the GPS while driving.
Americans are especially bad about messing with the device in traffic. Only a third of us claim that we never operate the GPS while behind the wheel. That compares with nearly two thirds of Brits and Spaniards.
Sorry, TomTom, but I'm not sure I buy that I'm a safer driver with GPS. Perhaps. If I can keep my fingers off it while driving. Oh, yeah, as a bonus, the study says I'll at least save gas with more efficient routes.
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New Firefox Browser Promises Speed and Stability
Tweet Share on Facebook June 17, 2008 Comment (7)The new Firefox browser is scheduled to be available today for download. I had grown frustrated with the most recent version, which would lock up several times a week. Version 3.0 seems much more stable. That's a good thing—I think.
Yes, it was irritating to have Firefox crash in the middle of a busy day. I might have 25 windows open, most of them with two or more tabs. Suddenly, they were gone. Most of the time I could get them back with the "session restore" feature. But not always. Once every couple of days, Firefox would crash, and all the windows would be gone. Painful.
So I'm going to download the new Firefox as soon as I can, which may not be today, judging from how busy Mozilla's servers are. Still, I'm tossing out the usual caution about waiting for early bugs to be fixed. The new version seems to be more about stability, speed, and security—though it does include new features.
Then again, part of me will miss the crashes. They are like a good cleaning. Many windows are open to pages I intend to read or study closely—as if I'll find the time. There they sit, nagging me as I tab through looking for something specific. In reality, I don't miss them once they're closed. They're like stacks of unread magazines on the floor that are soon forgotten once they're pitched into recycling.
Now Firefox promises to be more stable. Fine. Who's going to pitch my unread Web pages?
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Notebook Sales Continue to Surge
Tweet Share on Facebook June 13, 2008 Comment (4)Notebook PC sales continued surging in the first quarter, with worldwide shipments up 35 percent from a year earlier, according to DisplaySearch data. Apple, continuing to gain ground, became the seventh-largest shipper of laptops, rising from the eighth-place ranking it had held for about a year. Apple was one of four companies that actually shipped more notebooks in the first quarter than in the fourth quarter of last year. Portable PC sales typically fall in the first quarter after the holiday-pumped fourth quarter. Toshiba, Dell, and Samsung also saw sales rise over the previous quarter. Hewlett-Packard remained the sales leader, a position it has held for seven quarters, with a 20 percent market share. With consumers increasingly gravitating to portable devices, notebooks already account for more than half of total PC sales.
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Toshiba: Free HD DVDs Will Be Late
Tweet Share on Facebook June 13, 2008 Comment (9)To add injury to insult, Toshiba tells me that I won't get my free HD DVD movies until sometime in the fall.
Toshiba and Microsoft had added the five free DVDs in one of their last-ditch efforts to pump sales in the fight over the next-generation disk format. They also cut prices to about $100 just before the holidays.
That was low enough to convince me the players were a decent buy, even if their format looked to be losing to Blu-ray, which it did. I didn't care too much about the free DVDs, which mostly offered lackluster titles.
Still, I winced when Toshiba sent me a card the other day. "Unfortunately due to such high demand your shipment will be delayed." It seems sad to have to stretch this out further. Can't they get anything right?
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Site Launches Online TV for Couch Potatoes
Tweet Share on Facebook June 11, 2008 Comment (1)TidalTV wants to resurrect the couch potato in all of us. The latest site to launch free commercial television on the Web, TidalTV is taking dead aim at those tired of searching, seeking, and deciding what to watch on competing sites like Joost and Hulu.
When you first visit TidalTV, the site offers up a cablelike grid. Those are shows playing in linear fashion like good ole' TV being broadcast to the on-couch masses. Using an onscreen "remote," you can slip through ongoing shows in a way that's reminiscent of surfing digital or analog cable.
The selection is impressive for a start-up, with about 20 channels of fare from the likes of HGTV, CBS, National Geographic, DIY Network, and Food Network. The choices include a heavy dose of news in channels from the Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, MSNBC, and others.
For those feeling less passive, everything on the grid is also available on demand. You can rewind to a show's beginning or skip ahead and start playing one scheduled to broadcast later, or even earlier. You can also access shows from an on-demand guide, as well as a collection of clips and short videos.
The commercial breaks are shorter and fewer than on conventional over-the-air or cable channels. The video looks good enough on a PC screen and requires no software download to watch. TidalTV notes that this early launch is just a beta test.
We saw no movies listed, and this site—unlike Hulu—doesn't purport to offer high-definition clips. But for those willing to watch with a keyboard and mouse, TidalTV offers a new choice in TV, and one where vegging out is encouraged.
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Apple iPhone Heat May Melt Price on Sprint Phone
Tweet Share on Facebook June 11, 2008 Comment (4)Sprint Nextel is most likely feeling iPhone-generated heat to keep the price to $200 for its upcoming Instinct handset, seen as the answer to Apple's popular smart phone, writes Jason Gertzen in his Sprint Connection blog.
Of course, Sprint can do what AT&T did with the new iPhone. Lower the price of the handset, and raise the monthly fee for Internet access, which is required as part of the two-year contract. A lot of folks, including Thomas Hawk on his Digital Connection blog, calculate that the added fee makes the iPhone at least $40 more expensive than its $400 predecessor. That's more than the upgrade may be worth, says Hawk, despite being a fan of Apple and the iPhone.
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Can Touch-Screen Make HP the Family PC?
Tweet Share on Facebook June 10, 2008 Comment (21)Hewlett-Packard announced a horde of new computers today, including updates to its TouchSmart PC. The original TouchSmart in early 2007 was the first potentially mainstream desktop that I'd seen with a touch-screen, an innovation that makes sense as a hub for household planning.
I haven't seen sales numbers, but I've not run across the TouchSmart in any kitchen I've visited. That's too bad, because I think an electronic concierge could help a busy family. It'd be a place for the calendar, recipes, notes, and to-do lists. The standard mix of paper, stickies, and computers makes for confusion in most households.
The touch-screen is attractive for making quick pecks for info on a PC in the kitchen, where I'd want the family hub. And maybe HP has improved the original TouchSmart software, which was promising but too limited. It couldn't, for example, easily share data with other programs.
But HP seems determined to sell a high-dollar computer that does too much, including sell HP inks with the built-in photo printer. The first model sold at the stratospheric price of $1,800.
The new models start at $1,300. That's still too expensive. Strip out the printer and the TV tuners, and get the price under $1,000. A price of even $700 or $800 seems a reasonable premium for the TouchSmart features. Then maybe it'd go mainstream.
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Apple iPhone Gets 3G and Price Cut
Tweet Share on Facebook June 9, 2008 Comment (5)Apple today confirmed its worst-kept secrets: a new iPhone that can tap high-speed, 3G data networks. And that it will sell for $200, which is cutting the price in half for its low-end model. Those moves alone will help broaden the already successful phone's appeal.
But what might cause me deep pangs of iPhone lust was the announcement of an online system to bolster the phone's usefulness. MobileMe is the long-overdue overhaul of Apple's .Mac, the $100-a-year collection of E-mail and storage services that seem almost antiquated by today's standards. The new online applications will offer another opportunity to move our lives online. They'll compete with similar online software from Google, Microsoft, and, most recently, Adobe.
The coverage from sites like Engadget and Gizmodo suggest the applications are slick and easy to use, much like their counterparts on a Macintosh computer. Even more intriguing is their promise to keep contacts, E-mail, and calendar synchronized across devices.
Windows users can apparently tap that capability with their desktop applications. But Apple didn't mention if it will eventually support handsets other than the iPhone. We'll be watching anxiously with lust in our hearts.
