Today Amazon opened the beta door to their new music store amazonmp3beta and as the name suggests, everything is available in mp3 format. In comparison Apple’s iTunes format is AAC for all those millions of iPods.
Amazon MP3 offers the top 100 songs for 89 cents each and the top 100 albums for $8.99, with most albums priced from $5.99 to $9.99.
However I believe the breaking point will be what is available.
Search for U2 and you get:
Nicholas Negroponte‘s One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program is off to a less than stellar beginning. The biggest hurdle (outside of Intel) is securing funds from third world countries who verbally promised to purchase units for their school children.
The organization is allowing Americans to purchase a unit for a child in a third world country — and getting an XO laptop for yourself.
Well after three weeks of questions regarding where NBC would move its digital television programs after breaking ties with Apple’s iTunes. I blogged about their greed. Well NBC Universal “announced” many popular shows would be available for free download.
But hold on. They are pulling a fast one. In attempting to fight the TiVo generation (watch TV programs when, where and how you want) NBC has decided on the following conditions on their new NBC Direct program:
Shows available for one week only following broadcast.
Playback on computer only – no transfer to mobile devices.
Commercials included: viewers cannot skip through ads.
Shows will “degrade” — become unwatchable.
Windows only support – Mac and iPod support later in 2008
So you download The Office and have only seven days to watch it before it “implodes” rendering the video useless on your computer. This seems to imply re-downloading…but maybe NBC is taking the position you have just one week to watch the show or else.
Even industry analysts are calling it a stretch. A blunder is more accurate.
But this idea actually gets “better” for consumers. At some point in 2008 (if ever) NBC will sell you the same shows without commercials and allow them to be moved to mobile devices … yea it’s called iTunes. Who is running the store over there…Jack Donaghy???
Google has now added to their on-line tools solution to include presentation software very similar to PowerPoint. This compliments their word processing and spreadsheet tools, virtually serving online version of Microsoft Office. And all you need is a Google account.
Impressed that it supports PowerPoint (.ppt) file format. You can upload an existing presentation created in Microsoft PowerPoint program and share it with a few people (in a secure environment) or choose to share it with the world (via a url) or better yet simply upload your file to SlideShare a great free site where people are sharing presentations.
China has been taking quite a justified beating in the global press for their product safety crisis. From toys to medicine China is stumbling over its global reputation. Today’s article in the New York Times proves Europe has learned from the mistakes of American toy companies.
Mattel is probably the biggest American company to also take such a beating in the press. They probably deserve it in making the choice to shift production outside the US where they easily have manpower to inspect factories. In China it has proved to be a huge disaster. Where was Mattel’s Quality Assurance on this one?
Mattel is really guilty of not working hard enough to grow their business relationship in China. After all, at some point Mattel executives felt comfortable enough to shift business overseas yet clearly failed to ensure their new relationship was running smoothly. Mattel’s public statement.