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Warner Brothers is the first company that gets the new distribution model. If I can pay for a DVD and easily get a copy of movies I can play on my computer and portable device, I won't need software to rip copies for me. The Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix DVD I got in the mail today includes exactly this. Right on the front of the box, there's a sticker reading "Bonus Digital Copy of the Film included".

There are actually two digital copies on the disk:
1) A 320x166 widescreen version for PlaysForSure devices and Zune playback.
2) A 3.6Mb 720x306 widescreen version for PC Playback
Both look great on their respective devices. And both eliminate the need to rip DVDs, without adding any additional price to the disk. The only thing better than this would be a disk that came with a download code for Amazon Unbox. In the meantime, you just validate and copy the files to your PC for playback or transfer to your portable device.

With any luck, the Harry Potter experiment will work well and we'll see many more disks like this one in the near future. Maybe this is the HD-DVD managed copy concept only a year or two late?

I'm in Des Moines, IA visiting family for the holidays and got a hot tip that Senator John Edwards is streaming live at 5pm Central time to annouce details of his candidacy. Robert Scoble is on the road with Edwards as an embedded blogger, which is something Mitch Ratcliffe first suggested *all* politicians should do. Regardless of your political affiliation, it's cool to see that political candidates are starting to understand that the Internet expands the ability to communicate. It's my hope Senator Edwards is a trend-setter in this regard and not the only politician to understand the importance of online press and blogs.

Update... Quotable John Edwards

On Iraq:

"enormous mistake to adopt McCain doctrine to escalate war in Iraq"

"tell the truth about what happened in the past and what's happening now in Iraq"

"we have an enormous responsibility to humanity"

On humanitarian issues and global warming:

"we need to be willing to sacrifice about something other than just war"

"be willing to conserve... be willing to not be an excessive consumer of energy"

"show what we're willing to do in the U.S. to be an example"

At home:

"demand universal healthcare"

"fairness and level playing field in the workplace"

"give kids access to college"

"model program in NC to pay for first year of college for kids who work during that year"

"not right to just throw money at the [poverty] problem... must be willing to help themseleves"

If you're looking for some holiday savings that won't have someone trying to beat you down in the aisles of a store, digital shopping might be your best alternative. There are a number of useful software apps offering discounts through the end of the holiday buying season, making it cheaper to either upgrade your existing applications or get the right tools for a given digital problem.

Top of the list in my book is Roxio's Easy Media Creator 9. The new and improved version of Roxio's all-in-one audio and video tool includes my favorite DVD authoring app, MyDVD, a video conversion tool for converting most videos for playback on iPod, Sony PSP, or other portable devices. The video editing app is among the easier solutions to use. The DVD burning app now supports HD formats like a champ and there are at least 500 other things you can do I haven't mentioned here. Using the Coupon Code SAVE10C9 you can save 10% on Easy Media Creator 9. If you owned a previous version of a Sonic or Roxio product there's also a $20 rebate.

For a serious digital video editing suite, Pinnacle is offering discounts off any of their products, which includes $50 off the amazing Avid Liquid. The software supports both standard definition and HDV video editing. For consumer editing, the

Pinnacle Studio is also discounted for the holidays. You can save on anything in the Pinnacle catalog using the coupon code PINN03. This one expires on November 30, so if you're in the market for video editing software, don't wait too long.

For converting your media files, Digital Media Converter remains a consistent solution. It converts most media formats with support for batch processing, including the ability to convert files like MOV. You can save $5 on Digital Media Converter with coupon code DMCOFFER.

You won't get any bruises while shopping for any of these apps, but you might just make your digital audio and video editing a little easier.

Google Analytics tells me over 80% of my traffic is from Google searches, with a smaller percentage from MSN and Yahoo. People click the Ask A Question link at the top of every page at the rate of 10-20 new questions every day. Yesterday morning I got a question from a guy named William who was referred to me by the HP support team:

I have a HP PAVILION 783c Desktop. I would like to make still photos from home video on a DVD+R disc. I contacted HP and they said to contact you.

I'd publish the full header of the email here as additinal "proof", but that's not fair to William since he's looking for an answer to his question not a violation of his privacy.

I have no reason to believe HP didn't recommend this course of action. There aren't very many people offering tutorials on how to extract data from DVDs recorded with camcorders. The process is a pain because the disks aren't really designed to be re-edited unless you buy Sony's software.

The question is: how many other companies are off-loading their customer service load to blogs? AOL apparently just dumped 1400 customer service reps. Are bloggers going to pick up the slack for AOL too? (Their secret reason for buying Weblogs, Inc maybe?) HP cut 15,000 jobs in July.

These large companies aren't reducing staff because computing is getting easier - I see questions ranging from the very basic to challenges that leave me scratching my head every day. Reducing staff is a balancing act to keep costs down for shareholders while providing "good-enough" support to keep customers from leaving. And in the case of a computer manufacturer, the customer is generally stuck for several years because Average Joe doesn't have the budget to buy a new computer just because the company gave lousy service.

So now we know this is happening. How do we (the bloggers) capitalize on large corporations off-loading their tech support to those of us who are providing free information online? Is the traffic enough? I'd like the traffic better if I was getting link love from HP. A big link on their support pages that says, "Can't find the answer here, try JakeLudington.com!" Maybe a Quad-Core machine to replace my aging P4 with HT?

I made a couple of tweaks to the RSS feed in order to easily incorporate coverage of DEMO China in my main feed. The conference officially starts tomorrow and I'll be there assuming my train ticket from Beijing to Taida is the correct location. There seems to be a disconnect between the English spelling of Tianjin TEDA (which is an acronym for Technologic and Economic Development Area) and the location of Taida, which I'm told is the same thing by the Beijing train station. If this is really the case, you'd think the Marriott Website would have enough sense to communicate transportation options to potential customers. Unlike smaller chains, Marriott doesn't seem to recognize they need to provide a Chinese Hanzi version of the address on the site so that taxi drivers can get you to the hotel.

Note to all hotel chains with properties in China: Include a printable address in Hanzi on your Website so that your guests can easily communicate with taxi drivers to get to your hotel. I have not met a single taxi driver in China that reads English. They all read Chinese Hanzi characters. A card with an address to the hotel on the back is great once you get to the hotel (like NOVOTEL example below), but before I arrive I need a way to communicate easily.

As mentioned in an earlier post, I'm at BloggerCon today and tomorrow running the live stream for the event. You can tune in to BloggerCon between 8:15 am and 6pm Pacific today (Friday June 23) and tomorrow (Saturday June 24) via the same Limelight Networks stream we use for The Chris Pirillo Show. Phil Torrone's segment on Tools offered some great feedback on tools people use for blogging, posting media and podcasting. Even if you think you know it all already, there's still a tidbit or two to be learned. Via Niall Kennedy I learned about audio transcription service CastingWords. I'll provide a full review once I get my test transcription back from CastingWords, but for 42-cents per minute I'm likely going to have them transcribe all the interviews I did at the Seattle International Film Festival so that people who don't have time to listen still get the benefit of scanning through the interviews online for details.

Jake Ludington's MediaBlab now offers domain registration services, complete with free blog, free hosting, email, forwarding, a parking page and total DNS control. Domain registrations start as low as $4.75 depending on what you are registering. I registered the account primarily to help save myself a few dollars on the 50+ domains I'm registering every year, but I figured I might as well pass along some competitive prices to anyone who visits MediaBlab with any frequency. If you're in the market for a domain (or hosting or a blog) registering here helps support the site.

For all the grief we've given companies who bundle third-party junk with their products over the years, I'm seeing a really disturbing trend in the software space. Yahoo and Google seem to be desperate to get their toolbar on my computer in a manner that borders on deceptive. I'm not talking about downloading the toolbar directly from Yahoo or Google. I'm not even talking about downloading the version of Firefox that clearly tells users it includes the Google Toolbar. I'm talking about instances where I download one application, only to find out it's trying to get me to opt out of installing a toolbar from either Yahoo or Google. These are tactics learned from the spyware industry.

I purchased an eBook from eBooks.com last night which included Adobe's DRM. No problem, I agreed to the terms at the time of purchase. In order to use the book on all the machines I want to, I needed to install the Adobe Reader v7 on a couple machines, because I hadn't updated all my computers. After downloading the update through the Adobe update tool, I'm offered the Yahoo Toolbar. I successfully avoided it by opting out during one update, because I don't want the Yahoo Toolbar, but somehow it managed to install on the other machine. I'm not sure how I missed it and I don't remember seeing the opt-out on that machine.

That's where the real problem lies. Opting-out. When I download software from Adobe, I'm not looking for Yahoo's Toolbar. I didn't check a box in Adobe's update tool that says please give me third party apps and software updates. Adobe makes the process very clear online, but I went through the built-in update tool in Adobe Reader 6. I understand Adobe probably gets paid for every Yahoo Toolbar install and I'm sure they need the money, but I didn't agree to download a Yahoo product and I certainly didn't mean to install it. At the very least, Adobe should offer me the opportunity to opt in (not out). Both Yahoo and Adobe should be ashamed of such deceptive practices.

Google isn't off the hook either. DivX still bundles the Google Desktop with new downloads of DivX Player and defaults to installing rather than giving me the choice of opting in. I shouldn't have to opt-out of something that Google is even admitting poses a potential security risk. Only if I click the DivX Play more info page do I find out that the DivX player includes Google Desktop in addition to "Play any DivX video; Add DivX playback support to your existing media player; Rent and purchase high-quality DivX movies" If Google wants to pay to have Google Desktop bundled with popular apps, fine. Just offer better disclosure in the process and let me opt-in.

I don't know whether Yahoo and Google are directly at fault, but they certainly have control over how their products are represented by the people marketing them. Adobe Reader and DivX Player are among the most downloaded files on the Web, which is why they are paired with the apps in the first place. If you're going to try to sell me someone else's product during the install process, at the very least, allow me to choose to accept, don't default to installing something I never asked for in the first place.

What's your take? Discuss your experiences with toolbars as third-party bundles at Digital Media Thoughts.

Or at least one of them...

At 9pm Pacific, in an extended version of The Chris Pirillo Show is Dave Dederer, former and current member of The Presidents of The United States of America. He's the guy who plays the Guitbass and provides half of the vocals for everything from Lump, Kitty, Peaches and the more recently released single Jupiter. You might also recognize his talents in the song Cleveland Rocks from The Drew Carey Show. Dave will be speaking at the upcoming Podcast Hotel at The Triple Door in Seattle and is joining us tonight at 9pm. Tune in!

February 3 is a big potential headache for anyone who hasn't updated their anti-virus software recently. A variant of Win32/MyWife is already making its way onto desktops and wiping out MS Office data files, PDF files and a number of other data types most computer users will be devastated to lose. The virus appears in email, posing as a chance to view nude photos or reenactments of the Kama Sutra. If you really need to look at adult content online, there are safer ways to do it than opening email messages. Take the time to update your virus software today to be sure you won't lose any important Word, Excel or PDF files tomorrow. The virus spreads both through email and across networks with blank administrator passwords. As with all email delivered virus attacks, be suspicious of all email attachments. If you weren't expecting something or if the subject of an email seems out of the ordinary from what your friends or family typically send, don't trust it. If you have friends sending you legitimate messages with adult material, it's probably time to find some new friends; Google image search takes less time and won't fill you inbox. ;)

You can find out more from your anti-virus vendor and Microsoft's Malicious Software Encyclopedia.

There's a hot discussion about Microsoft dropping support for the Mac version of Windows Media Player going on over at Robert Scoble's blog. As usual, the Mac bigots are making wild claims about Apple's higher ground and the smarminess of Microsoft's plans for world domination. I posted the news about Microsoft opting to promote the Flip4Mac QuickTime plugin a few days ago. There are many reasons codec support in QuickTime makes better sense long term, rather than continuing to develop a rather maligned version of the Windows Media Player for Mac OS X. The issues surrounding DRM, both Apple's FairPlay flavor and Microsoft's Windows Media DRM v2, are more complex and worthy some additional discussion.

When the Mac mini originally shipped, I griped about pathetic memory minimums and overpriced upgrades. As of today, I concede that the base Mac mini configuration is good enough for people to get started. 512MB of RAM will significantly boost performance compared with the previous 256MB base. If you do upgrade the RAM, Crucial is still cheaper than Apple.

In my own testing of the previous base configuration, I was less than impressed with several other features. First and foremost, my Samsung 712N monitor did not play well with the mini. Several times I had to reboot the mini two or three times before the monitor was properly recognized. Buy a Cinema Display, you say. That obliterates the $499 price point, I say. Hopefully my monitor experience was just a glitch and general experience is much better.

On some level I continue to fault Apple for excluding a keyboard and mouse. Since the mini is an obvious upgrade path for iPod owners with an older PC, they still get stuck buying a new keyboard and mouse because OEM boxes from Dell, HP, etc. still use PS/2 connectors, not USB. I'll excuse this and let Apple bask in the position of having a $499 machine that should be enough for common things like receiving email and browsing Web sites. If you plan on spending any time in Garage Band or iMovie, a bigger hard drive and more RAM should push you toward a much higher priced iMac or to a comparably priced Dell or HP.

If Internet rumors are any guide, the official name for Longhorn: Microsoft Windows Vista. What's a vista? A distant view through an avenue or opening, according to MW. Hrm, how apropos. Longhorn has been a distant view for months. Maybe someday soon it will come into focus. I'm looking at a sneak peek tomorrow.

The secret sauce of the latest Michael Robertson foray into the realm of MP3 audio is officially live. Launched in the wee hours of the morning, MP3tunes offers a catalog of 300,000 192Kbps MP3s with no DRM. Pricing per track is a modest $0.88. Beyond higher bit rate files and no DRM, the most compelling feature of the service is a "music locker" designed to store purchases for later download. Most of the current music services allow you to download files once, relying on the purchaser to burn a backup of the files or store them in a way they can be used on multiple machines. Under the traditional model, if a listener's drive crashes or they accidentally delete a file, it's gone. The music locker guarantees accessibility to purchased content anywhere you have an Internet connection capable of authenticating with the MP3tunes service. MP3tunes has a tough road ahead if it wants to do a serious transaction volume. The current version of the service lacks any support from major label artists capable of creating demand for offerings in the service. MP3tunes appears to be at the mercy of the indie labels listing tracks with the service to drive transaction traffic because no marketing mechanism currently exists to bring attention to the artists and provide a compelling reason to buy. Bottom line, MP3tunes is a smart business model with some great songs, but knowing what you want to listen to is currently a challenge for anyone not in tune with the scene in any particular genre of indie music. Hopefully we'll see streaming radio programming tied to the service, or a partnership with some music podcasters capable of recommending tracks to buyers who may not know their next favorite song is a mouse click away.

Hot on the heels of the coolest SmartPhone released to date comes a portable music service to go with it. Napster is taking full advantage of the new Windows Media Janus DRM to offer monthly subscriptions to their entire music catalog for $14.95. Audiovox SMT5600 users are the first group to benefit, with many more to follow in the near future. By subscribing to Napster To Go, SmartPhone users can download versions of the which are playable on the phone for as long as the subscription remains in effect. The phones use miniSD, which currently is available in sizes up to 1GB, which should store several hundred songs with ease.

Before you get too excited, this isn't a free trial of the hardware based service, it's their online offering. Still the content is virtually identical (buying the hardware based service gets you more channels). Try XM Radio free for 3 days to see if any of the content is something you want to pay $8/month for. Registration is required, but you don't have to give out any credit card info. This is certainly cheaper than buying an XM Radio unit and deciding it wasn't worth the investment.

The world of consumer HD continues to advance with the introduction of Sony's HDR-FX1 Handycam®. Besides recording in 1080i, specifications include three 1/3-inch CCDs, recording in 16:9 aspect ratio, and camera settings to create a film-like feel. While all of us would surely enjoy video of little Johnny's day at the park in 1080i, the camera may not be for everyone with a list price of $3,700. The HDR-FX1 will be available in November.

As part of their security initiative, Microsoft has gotten progressively more ambitious about offering large downloads on CD. These CDs are free of charge, with no shipping costs associated. Even if you already plan on acquiring SP2 through Windows Update, I highly recommend requesting a XP SP2 CD. Keep it on hand when you rebuild your system from the ground up, or offer it to bandwidth deprived friends who might not otherwise upgrade. The CD is currently available in English and German, with other language dates announced on the order page.

Blockbuster announces a service offering unlimited rentals 3 at-a-time for $19.99/month. An additional 2 movies per month may be checked out from local stores as part of the same plan. What doesn't make sense about this service is why the local unlimited plan, which requires no shipping, costs twice as much for the privilege of driving to the store.

I'm not sure how all the brands will shake out when the details are all in place, but Roxio as we know it is no more. The former leader in PC burning solutions sold off its entire software business to concentrate on selling downloadable music as Napster. As a distant second to iTunes Music Store in per-download music sales and a second place contender behind Rhapsody in subscription music services, this doesn't seem like an obviously sensible move. I'm not a shareholder, so I don't care what happens to their finances and I'm a huge fan of Napster's subscription service, so I hope this is a win for consumers on all fronts. With Sonic acquiring the software portion of the Roxio business, you can be assured good things will happen when the product family combines with Sonic's solid collection of DVD authoring tools.

BatteryUniversity offers some great tips for extending Lithium-ion battery life, debunking the myth that all rechargeables have a memory.

The analyst prediction of service provider tolls to allow iTunes on Motorola devices should come as no surprise. Verizon wants all content to pass through Get It Now, where they collect fees with a closed system. This is the same strategy used by AOL to create a gated online community for PC users in the early days of the Web. Bypassing the gatekeeper reduces switching costs, making it harder for cellular service providers to lock consumers in. The most important barrier to brand loyalty was already broken with the introduction of number portability. If cellular customers get a chance to access universal services like iTunes Music Store and take their number with them, providers no longer have any means of trapping consumers.

Hot on the heels of Real making their DRM convertible for use on Windows Media and iPod devices, Apple accuses them of hacker tactics and starts waving the DMCA in Rob Glaser's face.

Rob Glaser is getting desperate. What else could possibly explain Real's latest PR stunt business move. Everybody and their brother is reporting on the newfound compatibility of RealPlayer Music Store with every major device. Harmony is billed as the solution designed to be the most versatile music store on the planet. Buy music from RealPlayer Music Store and convert it to WMA or AAC, depending on what type of portable player you own.

Great in theory I suppose. Where this theory falls down is doing the more important conversions. For instance, I currently own a Rio Karma and make most of my music purchases from Napster in WMA format. My birthday is just around the corner and Robin decides I need a green iPod Mini. All my Napster purchases are useless on the Mini because it only plays AAC or MP3. Harmony doesn't address my dilemma at all.

The same holds true in reverse. My brother Paul owns an iPod with hundreds of AAC format songs purchased via iTunes Music Store. He buys Portable Media Center so he can take audio and video with him every where and sells the iPod on eBay. Those AAC files are useless on the PMC and every other non-iPod device. Harmony doesn't solve this problem at all.

Bottom line, Real can't convert DRM'd files from WMA or AAC because they would be in violation of the DMCA. Microsoft doesn't need RealNetworks to play middleman with their format; Apple doesn't either.

So what problem does Harmony solve? It solves Real's problem of no device support for Real format files. Portable devices don't support Real format. The market share is too small for device manufacturers to care, so in order to have a hope in hell of building a customer base, Real needs to convert its files to other formats. This is one more futile attempt at remaining relevant in a market that is quickly leaving them behind.

If Real wants any hope of competing, what they should be doing is retiring the Real format, merging with
eMusic.com, and marketing a huge library of MP3 files to their customers through the desktop spam engine built into RealPlayer. At least then they could claim to have the only music store compatible with every device. Harmony is a game of lets pretend.

Antivirus protection is a necessity of modern computing. Like the playground bully, antivirus vendors charge us for protection year after year. You are at their mercy, with no guarantee about future price increases. CyberScrub puts an end to annual protection payments, offering 5 years of protection for one low price. Industrial strength antivirus protection for the life of your computer at a fraction of the cost. Try CyberScrub AV and Axe the Tax!

Control Windows Media Player using your Smartphone as a remote. Connect via Bluetooth to play songs, edit playlists, change player modes and more. The app obviously requires a Bluetooth connection to your desktop, so investing in a Bluetooth adapter will be necessary for most users.

Jake's blog has a new home. Update your pointers to WWJD?

You've got to hand it to Apple; they do PR better than any other tech company. They promise the ultimate sound experience for the ultimate driving machine. For the price of a BMW, I should be able to choose from a selection of portable media players the dealer wants to throw in when I drive away from the showroom floor. On the surface, integrating a media player of any kind with a car stereo system seems like big news. If the integration looks like the demo in the commercial, this is barely better than just plugging the iPod in.

Sure, you can choose from one of five BMW playlists customized by you for your driving pleasure. When the display on the car stereo tells you the current track is TR 07, as the commercial indicates; I say BFD (Big Fat Deal, of course). Integration means the metadata attached to the song gets passed to the car stereo system. Buttons built into the steering wheel don't really make this better; the iPod's remote could have accomplished the same thing, with very little intrusion.

If this is the perfect marriage of design and technology, I eagerly anticipate the divorce. On the other hand, if someone wants to throw in a BMW with my next $300 portable media player, I'll be happy to consider switching.

Real and Starz made a deal back in 2002 to serve movies via a subscription service online. Earlier this week the Real/Starz launched offering all-you-can-eat movies for $12.95/month. The page layout looks quite similar to CinemaNow, with a selection comparable to their pay-per-view offering. Real serving movie content is nothing exciting by itself; a traditional cable network bypassing the cable operators is certainly worth noting. The price is higher than adding Starz to your cable service, but the selection is also better. You get the movies you want, delivered when you want them, and technically a subscription service should mean where you want them is only a username and password away. Portable devices aren't currently supported.

The Vivendi Universal merger with NBC makes the combined company sound a whole lot like Disney. Motion picture studio, five theme parks, and the combined TV assets of both companies. TV assets include Telemundo, USA Network and CNBC, in addition to the NBC network. The new NBC Universal is said to be valued at $15 Billion. Now if only NBC Universal could find a CEO looking for tons of money inexchange for making decisions that cost the shareholders tons of money...

None of the music download sites have any comprehension of exclusivity. It's as if they think we're all morons and don't realize there are alternatives to their services. Every time I find a so-called EXCLUSIVE track in a music store, a quick search of any other store turns up the same track.

Take the new Slipknot single, Duality, for example. I first ran across the EXCLUSIVE track while browsing the selection of songs in the MusicMatch downloads. Guess what? Napster has it too. So does iTunes. So does MusicNow. I won't even bother to check other sites. MusicMatch and Napster both claim the track is an EXCLUSIVE, which I assume means they want us think it's only available if you buy it from them.

Apparently, the RIAA made a few accounting mistakes in paying out royalties to musicians. Raising $50 million dollars at $3000/downloader should take them no time at all.

According to ThinkSecret, by way of Apple's total iTunes download statistics, the 100 million free songs from Pepsi was a flop.

Only 5 million songs were redeemed from the 100 million available winners, according to statistics reported in Apple's own download numbers relating to their first year in operation. The question is why? I'm an occasional Pepsi drinker and winner of 12 iTunes caps during the promotion. I redeemed 10 caps in one day (the maximum allowed for one redemption period), lost one cap, and forgot about the final cap until the end of the promotion, so I personally contributed two of the 95 million unredeemed caps. I'm thinking the story goes much deeper than lack of interest in finding winning caps.

Maybe soda containers weren't the best place to market the promotion. For instance, why was Aquafina not used as part of the promotion? It's a Pepsi brand I purchase at the rate of at least 3 bottles to every 1 bottle of soda. I probably purchased 18 20-ounce Pepsi bottles to win 12 iTunes. During that period, I easily purchased 50 bottled waters. Using the promotional odds, instead of my own much higher winning percentage, I could have won 16 more songs if Aquafina had been included in the contest. How many other bottled water drinkers would have cashed in songs if Aquafina did a contest?

A more fundamental question is, would more songs have been cashed in if a different company sponsored the promotion? Or do iPod users drink Coke? What if the promotion had run on Pepsi's Lays potato chips brand instead? I'm not a soft drink marketer, so I don't know the typical rate of return on a freebie promotion. When the prize is a free Pepsi, I generally cash in 1 out of every 2 winning caps I find, which is a considerably lower return than my personal iTunes experience.

Smart money says if the promotion ran with a WMA serving download site, like Napster or MusicNow, the results would have been significantly better. While iTunes doesn't require an iPod or a Mac, the perception in the marketplace is that one of those two products is required to play iTunes music. Users outside the United States weren't part of the promotion, further limiting the number of actively interested parties. WMA-based stores require installing additional software for functionality, but the tunes themselves will play in Windows Media Player. With hundreds of millions of Windows users, the odds are much better a Napster/Pepsi campaign would have fared better.

Musicians - if you had an MP3.com account, GarageBand.com is offering a way to recover the account, using their service, for FREE! Details are listed on GarageBand.com.

I've never personally used any of iRiver's devices, but they certainly have more visual appeal than anything from Creative, Samsung, RCA, Dell, or the laundry list of other portable device makers (with the exception of Rio). I've sampled prototypes of the Samsung and Creative PMC devices--both are lacking in key feature areas like output connections and interface usability. If photos of the iRiver PCM-100 are any indication, the iRiver Portable Media Center will beat the competition hands down.

$14 in parts from Home Depot result in an ugly but reasonably effective image stabilizer for mounting a video camera.

On one hand, Real is practically begging Apple to partner with them. Apple doesn't care. On the other hand, Real boasts 450,000 paid subscribers. While 450k isn't exactly monumental subscription numbers, the subscription market for streaming content is still very much in its infancy, putting Real ahead of most of the overall marketplace.

The Rio Karma got a firmware upgrade fixing a wide variety of minor bugs in the player. The best addition to the list is moving bands names starting with 'The' to the appropriate alphabet listing in the Artist category. For example, The Beatles are no longer listed in the 'T' section, they now appear in the 'B' section. A minor detail, but one that makes navigating the player much more efficient. Read why I think Rio Karma is the best portable media player on the market.

As much as I hate RealPlayer and the RealNetworks methodology of invading my computer with special offers and other random garbage tied to their player; I'm compelled to applaud their support of songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store (and integrated transfer to the iPod) in RealPlayer 10. Multimedia playback is about having options. One of those options should be the ability to playback media files purchased from any music store in any player. I can almost guarantee I won't be using RealPlayer, but this is a step in the right direction for music fans.

Weak evidence may have been the real reason a Canadian Federal court denied the Canadian Recording Industry Association access to ISP records for 29 "John Doe" file sharers. Regardless, the Canadian judge went on record with a legal opinion stating the placing of files in a P2P shared folder does not constitute distribution or the intent to distribute. At least in Canada, this is a small victory for privacy rights and maybe a victory for file sharing in general.

Hack the Planet reports on a hack for playing iTunes AAC files in VideoLAN. The only catch is you are required to play the files on a computer already authorized by Apple.

According to ZDNet, Rob Glaser of RealNetworks is calling for Apple to open the iPod to formats other than AAC and MP3. Hey Rob, maybe you should open your format to other software players. Of all the Internet content distribution companies, Real should be the most familiar with controlling the player and the format.

Fraunhofer, originators of MP3, announce Lightweight DRM for the MP3 format. The concept blows fair use in DRM wide open by allowing users to make copies of their content as long as they are willing to watermark the copies with personally identifying information. This is not unlike the concept 321 Studios used with their DVD X Copy technology before being shut down by the courts, watermarking DVD copies with the license ID of the software used to make the copy.

The official debut of Creative Commons Music Sharing License happened at SXSW this week, along with a search service designed to locate permissible content.

If you've been waiting for a price drop to get an Xbox, the time has come. Starting in April, Microsoft is dropping the Xbox price from $179 to $149, according to Dow Jones Business News via Yahoo.

Roxio's all-in-one multimedia management and editing solution, Easy Media Creator 7 has a patch available for download. No word on what it fixes, but the software read me includes a laundry list of known issues.

If you use an audio editor like Audacity, you need to subscribe to the KVR Audio Plugin Resource News. Their RSS feed can be found here. It remains one of the most comprehensive sources for free software instruments for your audio creation needs.

Kodak accuses Sony of patent infringement, they duke it out in court. Is this the last gasp of a once great innovator failing to adapt in a post film world?

Andrew reminds us what we want to do with an extra $6000 dollars. Playing vinyl without the wear would make me start buying vinyl again.

CNET's John Falcone ranks headphones.

Sean Alexander points us to a firmware update for Dell DJ owners. Most of the tweaks are much needed improvements to the user interface.