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MP3 Player News & Headlines
Buyout firm sues Citigroup over EMI auction
(AP)
AP - A private equity firm that paid billions of dollars for the struggling music company EMI has filed a lawsuit against Citigroup in an attempt to reclaim some of its investment.
Mac Laptop Explodes Flames
Apple laptops are known for their tendency to run hot; apparently, they run hot enough that they sometimes burst into flames....
Google To Allow New EtherPad Creation; Will Release EtherPad Source
(PC World)
PC World - Last week was a busy one for acquisitions: Apple bought Lala, a streaming music service, and Google acquired AppJet, makers of realtime collaborative text editing software EtherPad. Google announced that the AppJet developers (many of whom previously worked for Google) would be joining the Google Wave team, improving the services offered by the new Wave product.
Apple Intros New Mac minis; More Expensive, More Powerful
Apple today unveiled two new Mac mini computers with the Intel Core Duo processor. The new models are more powerful, and at $599 and $799, more expensive than ever.
Will Lala Power Web-Based iTunes?
(PC World)
PC World - Apple bought cloud-music service Lala with a plan: to integrate it into an upcoming Web-based version of iTunes, which stores your music purchases online rather than on your computer, according to several
reports.
Apple Pumps Down the Volume
Apple today announced a software update for the iPod nano and fifth generation iPod, that lets customers set their own personal maximum volume limit.
MP3 Tech Commentary
Multisession Discs: Burn MP3s to The Same CD or DVD More Than Once If you prefer to backup your music library to CD or DVD, then have you tried creating a multisession disc? Simply put, a multisession disc makes it possible for you to add data to the same CD or DVD using more than one burning session; if there is free space still left on the disc then you can add more data to it at a later date. There have probably been times in the past when you've been frustrated by not being able to burn more information to a disc that still had free space on it. The obvious advantage of using a multisession disc is that you don't have to fill up a disc in one go, but you can burn chunks of data until your CD or DVD is full. Popular CD and DVD disc recording programs such as Nero can create this type of format enabling you to burn your media files at your own leisure. Even though this method isn't as space-efficient as burning all your files in one go (a small amount of space is lost using a multisession disc), it's a lot more user-friendly and is well worth doing if you don't currently have enough data to fill an entire disc. If you're interested in finding out more, then our tutorial on How to Create a Multisession CD or DVD using the free CDBurnerXP program will get you started. Related Articles:
Multisession Discs: Burn MP3s to The Same CD or DVD More Than Once originally appeared on About.com Digital Music on Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 at 09:00:52.
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Two Publishers Delay eBook Versions of Books If you like to exclusively get your new books via their "e" version, be prepared to wait, at least if they're coming from these two publishers. According to the Wall Street Journal, Simon & Schuster and Hachette Book Group will be delaying their eBook version releases — 35 big titles for Simon & Schuster in early 2010 and a "vast majority of titles" for Hachette. Lead times for hardcover books will be four months for Simon & Schuster and about three to four months for Hachette. The news comes at a time when the eBook reader industry is experiencing huge sales growth. Simon & Schuster says the delay is a move that must be done now before the eReader install base reaches a level that would make implementing a delay impossible (I guess it's kind of like how newspapers now are having a hard time charging for online content after offering it for free for so long. I'm specifically talking about changing the consumer mind set, of course). The CEO of Hachette sounded even more dire, calling the move necessary for the preservation of the industry while describing the $9.99 typically charged for eBooks as "bargain-basement" pricing. In short, they're not making as much money off eBooks as they do with real books. 'Kind of reminds me of the ruckus raised by the music industry when digital music downloads first started to take off. So what do you think of the move? Regardless, it would be interesting to see if more publishers follow suit. Photo © Barnes & Noble Two Publishers Delay eBook Versions of Books originally appeared on About.com Portable Entertainment on Thursday, December 10th, 2009 at 02:37:25.
Top 10 Portable Devices: The Most-Searched Portable Electronics for 2009 Human beings are driven to look for stuff. Ponce de Leon searched far and wide for the Fountain of Youth. James Tiberius Kirk trekked across the stars in the search for Spock. Jason Hidalgo recently spent 15 minutes of his precious time looking for a matching pair of socks in his drawer of mismatched foot covering paraphernalia. Great as they are, these three grand adventurers aren't the only practitioners of the grand art of the search. Even humble, old you — yes, you my wonderful readers, and all the denizens of the Interwebs are prolific searchers as well. Here are the Top 10 most searched portable electronics devices according to AOL, complete with links for info and pricing seekers: 1. iPhone: Now there's an unexpected surprise (yeah, right). That clap-like sound you hear is the symphony of Apple fans applauding and Apple haters smacking their foreheads all at the same time. [Check prices] 2. iPod Touch: The Mini-Me of Apple's "Evil" portable empire. I will now officially change my name and add a small "i" at the beginning as a way to boost my popularity with the ladies. [Check prices] 3. Sony PSP: Nintendo's mighty DS line may have thoroughly outsold Sony's portable darling since they both hit the scene. But while the PSP hasn't won the war, it apparently won the search battle so far this year. I wonder how many of those searches were driven by PSP hackers looking for custom firmware updates... . [Check prices] 4. Palm Pre: Talk about a comeback. The former PDA has-been now has one of the more viable alternatives to the iPhone. Even old dogs can learn new tricks after all. 5. Microsoft Zune: Congratulations, Microsoft. Your perseverance has now gained enough mindshare for your portable media player to be the Tubbs to the iPod's Crockett — which certainly is eminently better than being Noogie Lamont (Who? My point exactly). Now if you can only drop your hatred for cash, I will be literally in your debt. (Sounds like somebody has a problem with leftover Microsoft Points!) [Check prices] 6. BlackBerry Storm: The Storm appears to have rebounded from that launch plagued by interface issues. Either that or plenty of folks kept searching all year for the firmware update that fixed said issues. True story: I was interviewing the president of a local Realtors association for a business story and she mentioned out of the blue that her Storm is much improved now. Just thought you'd like to know. [Check prices] 7. Garmin Nuvi: A search for stuff used for searching makes me chuckle for some reason. Yes, I'm that easily amused. [Check prices] 8. BlackBerry Curve: It's official. People love smartphones. And this isn't even the last phone on this list. [Check prices] 9. Sidekick: What is it with the Sidekick and its penchant for being involved in juicy news (e.g. the Paris Hilton hack and, more recently, the case of the missing user data)? Whatever the reason, it apparently helped the phone crack into the searchable top 10 for portables. [Check prices] 10. Amazon Kindle: eReading is apparently fundamental for searches, too. For more on the Kindle and other readers, check out our eBook reader section. Top 10 Portable Devices: The Most-Searched Portable Electronics for 2009 originally appeared on About.com Portable Entertainment on Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 00:01:05.
Free Music Downloads This Week This week we bring you another selection of free tracks for your listening pleasure. As always, the free MP3 music is full-length and will hopefully give you a good idea about the sound that the artist/band produces before you purchase their music. This blog is also about trying to bring you new music that you might not have otherwise discovered; listening to the following free music will hopefully broaden your musical tastes and introduce you to some new undiscovered genres. The free music downloads this week are:
- Apple Jelly (4:17)
- Salvation (3:23)
Related Articles:
- Top 5 streaming music sites
- How to use iTunes to get free radio and TV shows
- Jamendo music service review
Free Music Downloads This Week originally appeared on About.com Digital Music on Friday, November 20th, 2009 at 09:00:53.
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How To Fit Hundreds of Books in Your Pocket Plenty of things fit nicely in your pockets. Car keys, wallets, gum, pens, incriminating evidence that could get a dude in trouble with his girlfriend. But an eBook reader? Not unless you're the Jolly Green Giant, right? Well, not too fast. With its PRS-300 "Pocket" reader, Sony has actually concocted an eReader that's small enough to easily take around but is still readable. And as its name implies, yes, it can fit in your pockets (at least it did in plenty of mine). Just don't put it in your back pocket. 'Cause as eminent philosopher Chris Rock once said, just because something can be done doesn't mean it should be. Here's my Sony Reader Pocket Edition PRS-300 review. Photo by Jason Hidalgo How To Fit Hundreds of Books in Your Pocket originally appeared on About.com Portable Entertainment on Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 01:45:09.
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