First Look: LimeWire Music Store beta short on selection
The first thing to note about the LimeWire Store is that it is currently web-only. The company expects eventual integration with its open source P2P desktop client, but no specific timeline for that feature has been announced yet. For now, users can browse through LimeWire's selection of DRM-free tracks and albums online and listen to 30-second previews in the browser window. The company says that there are currently 500,000 MP3s available for purchase, which are almost entirely from independent labels and artists. Given LimeWire's protracted legal fight with the record labels, a full inventory of music from the Big Four labels may be a long ways off.
Indie labels bypass iTunes, give digital sales a shot
Bands have always sold CDs at concerts, and nearly every indie label has some sort of online storefront these days (see, for instance, Fall, Suicide Squeeze, and Rough Trade). What's more recent is the trend toward offering digital distribution, often in fan-friendly formats like MP3 and FLAC. Reuters has a piece this weekend on three indie labels (Merge, Def Jux, and Sub Pop) that are examples of the trend, and it points out the obvious problem that such sites face: most music lovers will never visit a label-specific store. But in the digital, long-tail era, such stores can succeed by targeting a niche fan base with exclusives, rarities, and out-of-print material. They can also cater to online buyers concerned about audio fidelity by offering lossless versions of tunes, something that the major stores don't even make available.
Firefox 3 goes on a diet, eats less memory than IE and Opera
The upcoming Firefox 3 release has much to offer in addition to a smaller memory footprint, including an improved user interface, new themes that increase visual platform integration, a completely revamped bookmark and history system that uses an SQLite database, a Cairo-based rendering backend, full-page zoom, support for JavaScript 1.8, and many other new features. These improvements will likely continue to push Firefox's climbing market share.
CBC to release TV broadcast as high-quality, no-DRM BitTorrent download - Boing Boing
Sources indicate that the CBC is set to become the first major North American broadcaster to freely release one of its programs without DRM using BitTorrent. This Sunday, CBC will air Canada Next Great Prime Minister. The following day, it plans to freely release a high-resolution version via peer-to-peer networks without any DRM restrictions. This development is important not only because it shows that Canada's public broadcaster is increasingly willing to experiment with alternative forms of distribution, but also because it may help crystallize the net neutrality issue in Canada.
Microsoft eyes iPhone with Adobe Flash smartphone deal
Adobe today announced that Microsoft has licensed Flash Lite and Reader LE for the Windows Mobile OS. Microsoft will make these products available to all Windows Mobile OEMs around the world, firing a shot across the bow of the S.S. iPhone. Flash Lite has been available as a manual download for Windows Mobile for some time, but Microsoft is clearly looking to reenergize its mobile OS market share and kill the iPhone's growing momentum. Flash support could be a point of differentiation for Microsoft, after Steve Jobs panned Flash Lite as "not capable of being used with the web" at a recent shareholder's meeting. Microsoft is looking to fill the void left by the iPhone's "just the Internet" Safari browser, which has been criticized for its lack of Flash support.
Ohio seizes voting machines in criminal investigation
At the request of election officials, the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation has seized voting machines for forensic analysis and has launched a criminal investigation into the Franklin County Board of Elections. The investigation was launched after Jennifer Brunner, Ohio's Secretary of State and chief election official, found that a candidate's name was marked as withdrawn on the electronic voting machine that she used during the recent primaries, an irregularity that was also reported by voters in other precincts. The state attorney general is now working with a team of computer forensic consultants to determine if there was any tampering. Preliminary analysis conducted by specialists from SysTest Labs indicates that the internal audit capability of the Franklin County voting machines had been manually disabled by county election board programmers last year, making it almost impossible to tell if any nefarious changes have been made to the systems. SysTest also discovered that the election board had failed to adhere to routine machine testing standards and had tested only one machine in each precinct rather than all of the machines.
Yahoo offers peek into crystal ball to justify bigger payday
The fact they're taking this very public and very defiant stand right now is a good sign that the company is confident about where it stands, and it's enough to send the stock more than 5 percent higher today—comfortably ahead of the general market or its biggest rivals. The lack of interest from would-be rescuers like News Corp. or Time Warner's AOL suggests that Microsoft will eventually get Yahoo's hand in marriage. But the company seems to be firing on most of its cylinders right now, and is walking the talk. Redmond will probably need to up its dowry a bit before it gets to consummate the deal.
Microsoft hits milestone with long-awaited Vista SP1 release
After many rumors as to when Windows Vista would get its much-anticipated first service pack looked improbable, Microsoft has finally dropped SP1 on the masses. SP1 rolls together 23 security updates and 550 hotfixes into a 434.5MB download (726.5MB for the 64-bit version). Apart from improvements brought by individual updates that are now part of SP1, changes that SP1 brings by itself to Microsoft's flagship OS are numerous. Significant changes include: * File copying should no longer have an ETA of hundreds of years * UAC has been altered slightly, including fewer prompts in specific scenarios * DirectX has been updated to support not only DirectX 9 and 10 hardware, but the backwards-compatible 10.1 as well * WGA has been tweaked to address two of the most popular exploits * Further support has been added for third party search solutions
Israel rebukes US: Our copyright laws are fine, thanks
Israel wants the US government to know that it won't implement laws banning the circumvention of DRM and it won't rewrite its ISP safe harbor rules; furthermore, neither of these issues should have any effect on trade relations between the two countries. The Israeli filing (PDF) made to the US Trade Representative comes a month after the International Intellectual Property Alliance called out numerous countries around the world for not living up to the IIPA's vision of the ideal copyright enforcement regime. Canada came in for a thorough trouncing, and Israel was also subject to criticism that it wasn't doing enough on copyright.
Childhood's end: Arthur C. Clarke passes away at age 90
Arthur C. Clarke is perhaps best known outside science fiction for his three laws of prediction. The laws state: 1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. 2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible. 3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
BBC NEWS | Technology | Casual games make a serious impact
When it first appeared in 2001 the game was known as Diamond Mine but is best known as Bejeweled. Since then creator Popcap has sold more than 10 million copies of Bejeweled and the game has been downloaded more than 150 million times. In technical terms Bejeweled is known as a casual game because it can be played for a few minutes rather than for the hours that games such as World of Warcraft demand. James Gwertzman, director of business development at Popcap, said just because Bejeweled and its ilk can be played for a few minutes at a time doesn't mean they are without merit. "There's nothing necessarily casual about playing them," he said. Popcap estimates that players rack up 600 million hours playing its online games every year. Importantly for the gaming industry the people raking up these hours are not traditional gamers. "Popcap players are 65% female and 70% of them are over the age of 30," said Mr Gwertzman. "It's a demographic that's been completely and utterly written off as gamers."
Wii locks comprehensively broken! - Boing Boing
The locks on the Nintendo Wii have been comprehensively broken. Now, just by loading some code onto an SD card and sticking it into your Wii, you can unlock your console so that it will play homebrew games written by anyone, not just big companies that have paid big license fees to Nintendo!
Digg - Microsoft says no Blu-ray for Xbox 360
Microsoft Corp is not in talks to include Sony Corp's Blu-ray high-definition DVD technology in its Xbox 360 video game console, an executive said on Wednesday.Digg - Why Microsoft should be worried about new NPD sales figures
Sony's PlayStation 3 has surpassed the Xbox 360 in sales for the second straight month. Microsoft has to be concerned about the PS3's growing momentum as well as its own supply constraints.
Digg - 10 reasons PlayStation 3 is still relevant
Blu-ray wins, Metal Gear Solid 4 gets dated, and 8 other reasons the PS3 is relevant again.
Five videogame characters who suck at their jobs. Destructoid offers reviews, previews, trailers, cheats, and more.
In general, our videogame protagonists need a set context for their lives before being thrust into action and adventure. Mario can't just be a dude with a goomba-stomping fetish; he has to be a plumber...Leisure Suit Larry - "loser" Max Payne – "Detective" Donkey Kong – "Donkey" Mario – "Plumber Samus Aran – "Bounty Hunter".
Build your own quad SLI: NVIDIA launches the 9800 GX2
NVIDIA's 9800 GX2 is, as the name indicates, a dual-GPU card. Unlike ATI's 3870 X2, the 9800 GX2 is built on two printed circuit boards (PCBs) with a single cooling structure in between the two cores. Both companies claim that their respective choice of single-PCB or dual-PCB is the best option for a variety of reasons, though NVIDIA also spent time explaining how this unified cooling system is far more effective than that of the ill-fated 7950 GX2. The card itself is 10.5" long and dual-slot, both of which are standard for high-end cards today.
One thing to also note from the above picture is the native HDMI output slot. That's a new feature for NVIDIA, as is the fact that the card is now capable of carrying video and audio over a single HDMI connection.
Digg - Gran Turismo 5 Prologue: one million preorders in Europe
Gran Turismo 5 Prologue is looking to take Europe by storm as the Blu-ray version of the game has already toppled the million mark in the territory.
Digg - What will be the “Big” Nintendo announcement at E3?
Nintendo U.S president Reggie Fils-Aime has teased the audience of GameTrailers TV with a promised “Big” announcement around Nintendo’s second half of 2008 line-up. The bomb is set to drop at the upcoming E3 event.
Digg - Lego Team Fortess 2
Two of the greatest things in the world finally meet.
BBC NEWS | Technology | Embracing the torrent of online video
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