Universal and Sony prohibit Zune sharing for certain artists

Universal and Sony prohibit Zune sharing for certain artists [via Engadget]

So, Microsoft keeps screwing over their customers to appease the major labels. After agreeing to pay Universal a bounty on each Zune sold (setting a chilling precident for the industry), and crippling their main differentiating feature (sharing music wirelessly) so much as to make it worthless, now they make the whole thing worse. Making your Zune lamer after you bought it. Now they are restricting which artists you can not-really-share.

Ballmer admits that they are screwing the Plays For Sure partners and customers

Mary Jo Foley sussed it out from a talk he gave at Wharton.

In the talk he’s asked about screwing over partners, and he basically says, “fuck ’em.” yeah, great idea Steve. What about fucking over your customers who bought music with Plays For Sure DRM or bought devices with it? Yeah, that is gonna encourage people to buy Zunes…

Worst… commercial… ever…

This is that stupid Visa commercial where everyone is moving smoothly, like the little cogs in the capatalist machine that they are, getting their food pellets and paying using their track-your-purchases-sell-your-data-while-opening-you-to -identity-theft-and-making-your-our-debt-slave-Visa card. Then some free thinker uses cash to pay and it gums up the whole thing. Anarchy is introduced until he moves along…

Beyond the whole socio-political bent above, the thing that actual bugs me is that it is complete bullshit. Paying with a card? You might as well pay with pennies and count them out. Everytime I’m getting coffee or a sandwich or something and someone pulls out a credit card for a $1.75 item, it makes me crazy while I sit and watch them run it through, wait for the stupid thing to print out, find a pen and then sign it. Meanwhile, everyone else in the line has their cash in hand, ready to pay, and the cashier can make change much, much faster.

One of the weirdest things about getting older

is that I’m finding myself sympathising more with the parents in the teen movies. When Larry Miller say “You’re 18, you don’t know what you want. And you won’t know what you want ’til you’re 45, and even if you get it, you’ll be too old to use it.” in 10 things I hate about you, I’m thinking exactly the same thing. About the 18 part. The 45 year old part, that line is strictly for the kids.

Live from Macworld 2007: Steve Jobs keynote – Engadget

Live from Macworld 2007: Steve Jobs keynote – Engadget

Engadget always has my favorite Apple keynote coverage.

So, Apple TV has a hard drive. Ok, cool. $299, decent

So the iPhone is official! widescreen, touchscreen, 4 or 8GB of RAM, runs OS X, lives on Cingular. Do I want one? Absolutely. At $499 will I buy one? extremely doubtful

Where is the new iPod and new iLife? Where is the One more thing? Don’t hold out on us now!

Oh, so much to love about January

CES, Mac Expo and NAMM. A tech and gear geek’s favorite month of the year!

Belkin iPod mixer thing
Guess what? I’m not going to any of them (got some big deadlines coming up), but I am following all the action, ya know, remotely.

So here’s what I’ve found so far: