You can now get about 8 million tracks free of DRM (copy-protection software) from iTunes with another 2M by the end of April. You can upgrade your existing set of iTunes tracks, but it’ll cost you – 30 cents per track.
The downside is that the record labels will now get to set pricing as opposed to the fixed per track/per album pricing in the past. I’ll take it; it’s a good thing overall.
Once again the Geeks must keep an eye on the happenings at MacWorld while at CES as Google announced a Mac version of Picasa.
Previously Google offered only a Windows version of Picasa and placated Mac users with a standalone Picasa Web Albums uploader and an iPhoto plugin. Picasa and Mac lovers can now rejoice as the Mac release finally provides the advanced sharing and sync features of Picasa to the Mac OS X users and the release provides the “it-slices-and-dices” feature list that covers everything from color balance to collages.
Picasa for the Mac works like other platforms by offering some great trademark features including non-destructive editing, and the ability to keep track of photos anywhere on your hard drive, then automatically account for new images as you add them. This last feature finally tackles an issue I have had with iPhoto!
To run Picasa, you’ll need an Intel-based Mac running Mac OS X 10.4 and above.
Considering the number of sub-$500 products there are in this category, it’s no wonder that these are still on people’s wishlists given the faltering economy. The 2 biggest splashes this year arguably came from Apple with their new MacBook and the brand-new MacBook Air, but Dell also joined the still hot mini-laptop/netbook field with their Inspiron Mini 9 and 12, and other makers improved upon their existing minis or jumped on the bandwagon as well.
We also liked the HP tx2z which is a tablet notebook with multi-touch. Here are some ideas and prices on a few of these laptops/notebooks/netbooks.
Apple MacBook Pro (unibody Aluminum case, 17″ TFT LCD, Intel Core 2 Duo 2.6GHz 4GB 320GB NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT) – $3200
Apple MacBook Air (2nd gen. 13″ LCD, 1.6Hz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU, 2GB DDR2 SDRAM, 120GB Serial ATA hard drive, NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics card) – $1700
Dell Inspiron Mini 9 (Glossy 8.9″ LED screen, Intel® Atom Processor® N270 1.6GHz,Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 950,Wireless 802.11g Mini Card, Win XP Home, 512MB DDR2 SDRAM, 8GB SSD) – $399.
Dell Insprion Mini 12 (Intel®Atom®Processor Z530 1.6GHz, Windows® Vista Home, 40GB PATA Hard Drive, 12.1″ widescreen TrueLife® Display (1280×800), Intel®Graphics Media Accelerator 500, 1GB DDR2 SDRAM, Wireless 802.11g Mini Card, Bluetooth 2.1, Integrated 1.3M Pixel Webcam) – $599.
Dell Studio Laptops – starting around $1250
Asus Eee PCs – starting at $249!
HP tx2z tablet notebook – starting at $1150
Vaio CR Series – starting at $799
Here’s the other new Apple laptop refresh, the pricey, but oh so light MacBook Air. The new Airs feature beefier graphics cards like their larger MacBook brethren, in the form of nVidia GeForce 9400M graphics cards with 256 MB of DDR3 SDRAM. They have larger hard drivers (120GB SATA or 128GB solid state), faster CPUs and faster memory.
The new MacBook Air also features Mini DisplayPort instead of the DVI on the previous version. CPU: 1.6 or 1.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Penryn, 1066MHz front-side bus and 2GB of 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM. All of this and it still weighs in at a featherweight 3lbs. Sweet.
Gimme!
More info from the manufacturer
Price: $1799/$2598 depending on configuration
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)
The Google G1 phone is now available for pre-order on the T-Mobile network for $179.99. You may be able to get your hands on one as early as Oct 22.
So what can you expect in the HTC handset running Android, the Google-sponsored mobile OS? For starters, a touch screen, a slide-out screen that reveals a full QWERTY keyboard, a screen that displays in both landscape and portrait modes, a 3 Megapixel camera, 3G network and Wi-Fi access.
The G1 will come with a number of apps built-in, yes, all centered around Google applications, such as Gmail, Google Maps, YouTube, Calendar, Google Talk. It will also thankfully have an IM application that is multi-platform.
Google has also already announced the Android Market which is analogous to the iPhone Store, where you can download and/or buy apps for your Android-based phone.
It remains to be seen how successful Google will be with their handsets in terms of open sourcing the whole Android platform. My suspicion is yes they will, and I won’t be surprised if Apple ends up doing something similar with the iPhone OS within a year. After all, if both Google and Nokia/Symbian are running open source systems and have significant market share because of it, well… you can figure out the rest.
Thank you Apple for bringing the iPod nano back in its very cool, tall, thin, original incarnation. Not only that, but for adding some bright, rad colors (9 total). Oh yes, it now comes in 8 and 16GB versions. So what else is new? For starters, it has a feature called Genius which auto-creates playlists based on what songs ‘go together’. It’s an algorithm developed by Apple. The other notable feature is the built-in accelerometer which allows you to shuffle the songs when you shake it!
The screen on this new nano is a bit larger and you can view your cover art in landscape mode (yes, automatically), as well as in Cover Flow (the moving album covers feature). And back to the accelerometer: this means that you can now play games based on tilting and rotation. To that ends, one of the built-in games is Maze; I’ll let you guess what that’s about.
Apple is also touting this as the ‘greenest’ nano as they’ve stripped most of the hazardous chemicals and plastics out of it. Kudos on that move Apple.
Price: $149 for 8GB, $199 for 16GB model.
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)
Someone sent me a link to this cool little gadget. It is basically an awesome docking station for any iPod. For example, are you wanting to turn on some awesome music for a romantic dinner? Or, are you just wanting to have some awesome dancing music going on during a big party? This little thing will do the trick.
You just put the music on your iPod, dock it onto the Orb and then you can use the 10 key remote to adjust volume, bass, and treble levels. The mStation Stereo Orb has a built in subwoofer to pump out a nice sound. It is great for any area, whether just in the kitchen while you are cooking or in a office while you are working.
Another great feature of the mStation Orb is that you can get it in 7 different colors. You can get black, white, green, blue, pink, red, or silver. You will be able to match the color to fit the room you are in.
More info from the manufacturer
Price: $129.95
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)
In a somewhat surprising, yet not so surprising move, Nokia bought up the rest of Symbian that it didn’t already own and will open-source the cell phone OS platform. Why? This is the strategy du jour in this age of Linux vs Microsoft, and now Android (Linux basically) vs iPhone/Win Mobile/Blackberry.
It’s a $410 million gamble for Nokia, but not a bad risk. Open-sourcing products many times results in amazing contributions and improvements to the products which in turn fuel sales of hardware, software and services surrounding that product.
Time will tell how Nokia fares. This writer thinks this will certainly help to keep Nokia firmly in the top tiers of the cell phone handset industry.
There’s no doubt that an iPhone update is imminent. But while nearly everyone has agreed on that, nobody knows anything definite about the specifics… except that the new iPhone will be compatible with the Microsoft Exchange email services. There’s a link on the main Apple.com iPhone page where you can apply to be a beta tester.
In regards to the iPhone, here’s what we know today:
Still doubt that the 3G iPhone is coming soon?
This settings screen with a 3G toggle switch (see image below) was found in the latest beta release of the iPhone’s 2.0 firmware.
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