Microsoft Opens Order Books For Zune HD

The portable digital media player from Microsoft is available in its new avatar. The Redmond, Washington-headquartered computer behemoth has opened the order books for the Zune HD mp3 player. The product will be available in the stores beginning September 15, a month from now.

The player is available in two capacities: the 16Gb machine costs USD 219.99 while the 32Gb machine is tagged at USD 289.99. They can be preordered from Amazon.com, Best Buy, Walmart and Microsoft. The players will be available in five different colors, and there is an option to customize your particular piece with engravings designed by guest artists, and which you can choose any one from a catalog of ten.

The new version of Zune has a number of nifty features. A built-in HD radio receiver makes the music player a portable radio too, which can catch local FM radio stations. The player can store video which can be viewed on an HDTV by connecting through an HDMI A/V docking station. The Zune is now a touch-screen product. Like its competitor the iPod, the Zune customer can download music from Zune Marketplace.

Read more about the latest launch of a zany new version of Zune by Microsoft, here.

BSquare Launches Mobile Player For Android Phones

Bellevue, Washington-headquartered BSquare Corporation has announced the launch of a new mobile player software for phones running Google’s open-source Android operating system.

The application has been built upon Adobe’s Flash Lite, ver 3.1, which itself was launched for the mobile market just a few weeks ago. This Flash Lite version itself runs on the “cupcake” version 1.5 of Android.

Club this news with the announcement of Taiwan-based phone maker HTC Corporation, of its launch of a “Hero” smartphone that is based on Android, and it becomes clear that happy days are ahead for Google’s venture, with the ecology around it now coming close to the critical threshold.

Since BSquare’s application is tightly bound to Adobe’s Flash Lite, it will run on any mobile phone where Flash Lite has been ported. So while Flash Lite works quite well on Window’s Mobile and Nokia’s Symbian, the software is still not available for Blackberry or Apple’s iPhone.

A feature (or bug) with Flash Lite is that it lacks full compatibility with the currently available Flash 9 that runs on routine desktop machines. Adobe is expected to come out with Flash Player 10, an upgraded version of Flash Lite, later this year.

Read more about the latest software application written around Adobe’s flash for the Android, here.

Zune HD officially announced

On May 26th, the Zune HD was officially announced by Microsoft. The Zune HD is meant to directly compete with apple’s iPod touch. The device offers many features that the iPod doesn’t, including HD radio, High definition video playback (Hence the HD title. This capability however requires an optional dock), and an OLED display.

The device will be the first Zune player to include the Internet Explorer web browser on board that allows it to compete with apple’s iPod touch as well as to continue taking more advantage of the built in Wifi. The only thing that has me worried about this is that IE is very bad and safari is very good. If they really want to put up some good competition it’s going to be features like this that matter when trying to build the best device.

Something else I find interesting is that Microsoft has plans to integrate the Zune with the xbox like I mentioned before in previous posts. This gives me hope that the Zune could possibly be successful If Microsoft can persuade buyers to choose the Zune over the iPod. Integration with the 360 is how to do it. Back to what I was saying, They are planning to the ability to download tv shows and movies on to xbox and then transfer to the Zune, Just like apple is doing with the apple tv and iPod devices. I’m just wondering if it’s too late to get these features.

Pricing and capacity has yet to be determined however I’m guessing they will offer up to 32Gb’s and much lower pricing than the iPod to stay competitive. This device has me impressed but the features it includes aren’t really what people want from this type of device, what people really care about is the app store. That’s going to be the major problem with getting the Zune HD off the ground.

Look for the Zune HD around autumn 2009.

Vodafone Sets New Trend – To Offer DRM Free Music To Mobile Customers

Mobile phone customers of Vodafone are now being offered DRM free (without digital rights management) music, and can choose from over a million tracks from every possible music genre, from record companies: Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and EMI Music. Combined, this translates to over a million tracks becoming available from every possible music genre.

The music can be purchased and downloaded from Vodafone Music Store in MP3 format, and played on any type of device, provided the device belongs to the customer.

This service will presently be available in the following countries in Europe by summer of 2009: Germany, Italy, UK and Spain; besides in New Zealand. Vodafone’s partner networks will provide the DRM-free service in the following countries in due course of time: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Iceland, Slovenia and Switzerland. The service will be rolled out in the rest of the world later in the year or early next year.

According to the press release, this is the first deal of its kind for a mobile network operator, where customers can be delivered DRM free music without the need to synchronize or sideload.

Read more about the new trend in music playing, launched by Vodafone, here.

The Next Generation iPod Is Also World’s Smallest Music Player

Apple’s new generation iPod Shuffle is also dimensionally the smallest music player. The 1.8″ X 0.3″ X 0.7″ device is smaller than a thumbdrive and comparable to an ordinary padlock key. This has been achieved by shifting all controls of the device, from the device to the ear buds.

The right ear-bud cord has the buttons that provide basic functionality: volume up/down, play / pause, go-to-next and go-to-previous track. Plus, the gadget now boasts a new feature – it can tell you the title and artist of the song being played, using the VoiceOver technology. The VoiceOver technology also lets you know when the battery is weakening and needs to be charged.

The sleek device also now comes built in with 4GB of storage, which means that up to 1,000 songs can be loaded in one go. Songs can be bunched into multiple playlists and each list can be appropriately named. The VoiceOver technology tells you the name of each playlist, so you can select the appropriate bunch of songs you would like to listen to at any point of time.

The iPod can now be fastened securely to one’s clothing with the help of a clip whose surface can be engraved. The engraving process is carried out by the App Store when customers place their orders online.
  

Read more about the latest innovation from Apple, here.

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