eHomeUpgrade | Cisco Systems to Acquire KiSS Technology A/S

eHomeUpgrade | Cisco Systems to Acquire KiSS Technology A/S: "KiSS is a leading technology provider for networked entertainment devices and has a product portfolio that includes home video products such as networked DVD players and networked DVD recorders. KiSS's technology platform also has the capability to extend to other consumer electronics products and will help Linksys develop a unique, networked entertainment product suite."

Looks like Linksys is getting more serious about the networked entertainment device space....

Billboard PostPlay: Coremedia Combines OMA DRM With Microsoft DRM

Billboard PostPlay: Coremedia Combines OMA DRM With Microsoft DRM:

Great for the consumer, but I'm sure that neither Microsoft nor the mobile carriers are too pleased about this. Microsoft wants the handset manufacturers to license their DRM, and the carriers don't want you to be able to buy music without them in the loop. Let the mayhem begin!

BetaNews | Longhorn Gets a Name: Windows Vista

BetaNews | Longhorn Gets a Name: Windows Vista: "Now, it appears Microsoft has chosen an official name for Longhorn with just that in mind. Enter: Windows Vista."

I don't know... I think I like "Longhorn" better. :-)

How To Turn A Travel Mug Into An MP3 Player Mounting System

Maybe I've been watching too many back-to-back airings of "American Chopper", but after struggling to come up with a good way to mount my Creative Zen Micro in my car this idea struck me.

Essentially, by using an old travel mug and a 20 cent "L" bracket that I had laying around, I hacked together this solution. The bent "L" bracket slides into the Zen Micro's case on one end, and into the "sip hole" of the coffee mug at the other.


The good news is that it is secure, the right height with adjustable angle (just spin the mug so either the driver or passenger can easily read) and best of all, a place to store my player when I park. Hopefully, this will keep any potential thieves from breaking in (unless someone is just dying for what looks like a cup of stale coffee). I'm thinking about trying to run the wires (mini-jack to cassette adapter and cigarette lighter to mini-USB charger) through the bottom to clean it up a little. The bad news... that mug won't ever see coffee again.

AOL's Music on Demand gets Emmy Nomination

Sweet. I certainly can't take credit for this, but it is nice to work on something that gets recognized by the industry. Check the competition out:

From Interactive TV Today :

The nominees for the Emmy for Non-Program Specific Enhanced or Interactive Television for a Channel, Network or Service are:

• AOL Music On Demand (Zetools / Time Warner Cable)
• The DirecTV Interactive Service (DirecTV)
• iO Interactive Optimum Digital Cable Service (Cablevision Systems Corporation)
• Reuters Interactive TV Channel (Reuters)
• Sesame Street Games (Sesame Workshop)

The ITV Emmys will be presented at the Creative Arts Awards Ceremony at the Shrine Auditorium in downtown Los Angeles on September 11th. The Academy has upgraded the status of its ITV Emmys this year: the award decisions of the Interactive Media Peer Group are no longer subject to ratification by the Academy's board, and all recipients will receive Emmy statuettes; previously, it was up to the board to decide whether each recipient would receive a statuette or a simple plaque.

PBS | I, Cringely . July 14, 2005 - More Shoes

PBS | I, Cringely . July 14, 2005 - More Shoes Very interesting speculation from Robert Cringely about the the Apple/Intel + Intel/Clickstar deals and how they may be inherently linked.

In short, Cringely says he thinks that Clickstar will power an iTunes Movie Service with Intel providing the support for a device ecosystem that can access the content from living room and mobile devices. Could be, but I think the mobile DRM issue is non-trivial and unless Intel has solved the portable tether subscription issues that Microsoft has already tackled with "Janus", then I'm not sure how they plan to "rent" first-run movie content. Maybe the consumers would only have a "purchase" movie option?

Keep an eye on this one...

BetaNews | Napster To Go Comes to Palm

BetaNews | Napster To Go Comes to Palm: "Napster on Monday announced that it had certified a new set of devices to work with the company's Napster To Go subscription based music service, including a new option for users of some Palm OS handhelds through third-party software."

Good news. The more Janus devices the better. What is more exciting is the thought of NormSoft's Janus compatible player (Pocket Tunes 3.1) running on the new Treo. I'm not sure if any of the existing Treo's (or upcoming) have a secure clock, which is a requirement for Janus, but I would think that they should...

News Corporation to Acquire Intermix Media, Inc.

News Corporation to Acquire Intermix Media, Inc.: "Acquisition Includes World's Fastest-Growing Social Networking Portal, MySpace.com"

I had heard the rumors that MySpace was a prime acquistion target, but I would have not guessed that Fox would be the suitor. I'm as big a fan of MySpace as most, but I've got to say that I think $580 Million is more than a little steep for a site and service that can be duplicated fairly easily. Granted, they are buying mulitple properties and established eyeballs, but if MySpace can build that kind of traffic as a small independent company with little to no marketing budget (at first), than others should be able to do the same.

Xbox 360 launching November 4th? - Engadget - www.engadget.com

Xbox 360 launching November 4th? - Engadget - www.engadget.com: "It's not entirely clear where they scored this info, but Xbox365.com is reporting that Microsoft is going to launch the Xbox 360 on November 4th."

Nice. Say an early "hello" to the first Media Center Extender device that will hit critical mass. Now all Microsoft has to do is include Media Center functionality in the baseline Windows "Longhorn" Home Edition.

Music Videos May Be Coming to iPods - Yahoo! News

Music Videos May Be Coming to iPods - Yahoo! News Ah, the enigma that is known as Steve Jobs. Lots of stories the last couple of days regarding Apple's Video iPod plans. If true, then you've got to wonder about Jobs' credibility.

Here is a quote from Jobs' published by SeattlePI last year regarding the Video iPod rumors...

Responded Jobs: "You know one of the things that I say around Apple, I paraphrase Bill Clinton when he was running long ago, when he said, 'It's the economy stupid.' I say, 'It's the music, stupid.' We have to stay focused on the fact that people are buying these devices to listen to music. ... People love listening to music as a background activity when they're exercising, when they're commuting and when they're just hanging out. Music is a wonderful thing because A, it's music, and B, because it can be listened to as a background activity. And a lot of these other things that people are talking about building in, such as video and things like that, are foreground activities. You can't drive a car when you're watching a movie. You know? It's really hard. So we really are very focused on music because that's what we think the revolution is here."

This is exactly why I don't believe any of the latest feigned disinterest from Jobs' regarding a subscription music service. As he has a history of doing, I believe he will continue to spout "people don't want it" until he is ready to launch. Then he will position himself as the creator of all that is good and holy and grant the world the power to subscribe to a music service. Ugh.

del.icio.us: casting the net wider

del.icio.us: casting the net wider It took a little finnagling, but I just learned how to use de.icio.us tags in association with a podcatching client (DopplerRadio). Basically, this enables me to tag any media file I find online with my "jherskowitzpodcasts" tag and it will then automatically download to my PC and dump it into a newly created My Music/Podcasts folder. It also creates an auto-synced playlist so that they next time I connect my portable player I will get the content I tagged.

Most podcatching clients seem to have settings that allow you to specify how many files/podcasts to download, how long to keep them, maximium size allowed, etc. Once I find some copyright-free material to tag, I will let you know and you guys should be able to easily subscribe to my "channel".

UPDATE: My podcast feed is available here.... http://del.icio.us/rss/tag/system:media:audio+jherskowitzpodcast

AIM Fight!

AIM Fight!

Not necessarily useful for much, but still kind of fun in a time-wasting sort of way. Interesting to see just how networked you are in the AIM world....

Del.icio.us Recommendations

I've started to toy around with Del.icio.us and am now "tagging" artists so that they appear in a recommendations RSS feed. I then used an RSS-to-Javascript converter so that I can put that module into the sidebar of this page. Now, when ever I see/hear something that I want to recommend, I can just right-click and "post link to del.icio.us" and it will appear shortly thereafter in this blog. More experiments are in the works (such as the AIM presence indicator I recently added). Stay tuned...

Podcatching 101

wmplugins.com - Editor's Corner "Hey, what's this podcasting/catching thing all about?" you ask. Well, here is a nice overview of how to get started in a Windows Media Player world (enough with iTunes already!).

The Weakerthans : Get Music : MusicNow

The Weakerthans : Get Music : MusicNow

New feature! My artist pick of the moment, The Weakerthans. Check them out.

The Globe and Mail: A record company's best friend

The Globe and Mail: A record company's best friend: "Welcome to the world of mp3 blogs, the soft beachhead of the recording industry's efforts to get more gain and less pain from on-line music sharing. The same companies that are trying to crush illegal downloading are making nice with a growing army of audio bloggers who offer free access to copyrighted music every day."

The labels speak... file sharing bad, streaming audio blogs of the same content...good.

iMesh Announces Distribution Agreement with SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT

BUSINESS WIRE: The Global Leader in News Distribution: "Slated to roll out this year, the new iMesh will offer consumers a broad selection of easily accessible content of all genres to be discovered, shared and enjoyed within an active P2P community. Authorized content will be available through ala carte downloads and a subscription sales plan, allowing users unlimited music downloads, for a low monthly fee. The iMesh site will also open access to a large pool of content culled from multiple sources, including the Gnutella network, that will remain available for unlimited downloads that are free to the user. The iMesh community will be able to search, sample and download a growing selection of more than 15 million tracks as part of a shared experience. To further assure the compensation of rightsholders, iMesh enables a confirmed rightsholder to register their content and make instant claim for protection and compensation for their works under a mutually agreed formula. "

These iMesh and Snocap P2P deals are interesting, in that it creates an open trading post for unsigned artists and small indies to get there stuff out there, but without a compelling discovery/recomendations engine I don't think it is going to help the average user much. The good news for these companies is that they may be able to get thousands of small artists advertising their solution.... "look for us on iMesh!".

RangeMax Wireless Networking Technology

RangeMax Wireless Networking Technology: "Buy a RangeMax Router and receive a free RangeMax Wireless Adapter when you trade-in your old wireless router."

Hey, this looks like a pretty sweet deal. I was thinking about upgrading anyways, and this may be just what the doctor ordered. All I have to do is get myself to the post office and let Netgear borrow $100 for 4 months...

PaidContent.org: AOL, AEG and XM To Launch On-Demand "Live Channel" Venture

PaidContent.org: July 12, 2005 Archives: "America Online is tying up with movie theater/stadium/entertainment giant AEG Group and satellite radio player XM to launch an on-demand 'live entertainment' venture, paidContent.org has learned. The formal announcement is expected as soon as tomorrow... "

Is Apple Your Next Mobile Phone Carrier? - Forbes.com

Everybody In The Pool - Forbes.com: "The solution could be for Apple to launch its own cellular network, doing an end run around carriers and providing the company with revenue from both selling phone handsets and from the resale of cellular service. "

It's no secret that the latest iTunes release (4.9) is riddled with references of phone support, such as:

• Eject mobile phone.
• Phone>Podcasts
• iPod>iPodmobile
• iPod Phone Prefs
• iPod>Phone>iTunes Setup
• Phone>Updating contacts
• The name of my mobile phone is:__
• The mobile phone cannot be ejected because it contains files that are in use by another application.
• Set Up Your Mobile Phone
• Automatically choose songs for my mobile phone
• iTunes will automatically fill your mobile phone with a random selection of songs from your library. You may fill your mobile phone with a different selection of songs by pressing Autofill in the mobile phone playlist.
• No mobile phone connected.
• Open iTunes when this mobile phone is attached.

I, like most, figured this was just a precursor to Cingular releasing the much discussed/much delayed Motorola iTunes phone. But, Apple as a MVNO (mobile virtual network operator)? It had never really crossed my mind before, but it seems like it could be a good oportunity for them. Apply Apple's flair for "cool" industrial design to a combo phone/iPod, and then subsidize the hardware with a carrier contract (private-labeled Cingular network perhaps?) and you've got a pretty compelling offering.

I'm going to have to keep my eyes and ears open on this. This is one of the more industry rumors I've heard in a while.