Head tracking in 3D space

Holey smokes, Johnny Lee is the man. This video is fantastic!



I totally want to mod my wii now. Check out this other video...



Great stuff. Check out more on his website http://johnnylee.net.
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Toshiba pulls the plug on HD-dvd

Well, the rumblings that have been in the works for a while now have finally come to fruition. I guess last weeks decision by Wall-Mart to pull the plug o HD-dvd was the final kiss of death for Toshiba, as they've finally decided to officially discontinue their HD-dvd products. While they will still support the products on the market, they will no longer actively manufacture, or market the HD-dvd line. here is the full press release care of ComingSoon.

"Toshiba Corporation today announced that it has undertaken a thorough review of its overall strategy for HD DVD and has decided it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders. This decision has been made following recent major changes in the market. Toshiba will continue, however, to provide full product support and after-sales service for all owners of Toshiba HD DVD products.

HD DVD was developed to offer consumers access at an affordable price to high-quality, high definition content and prepare them for the digital convergence of tomorrow where the fusion of consumer electronics and IT will continue to progress.

"We carefully assessed the long-term impact of continuing the so-called 'next-generation format war' and concluded that a swift decision will best help the market develop," said Atsutoshi Nishida, President and CEO of Toshiba Corporation. "While we are disappointed for the company and more importantly, for the consumer, the real mass market opportunity for high definition content remains untapped and Toshiba is both able and determined to use our talent, technology and intellectual property to make digital convergence a reality."

Toshiba will continue to lead innovation, in a wide range of technologies that will drive mass market access to high definition content. These include high capacity NAND flash memory, small form factor hard disk drives, next generation CPUs, visual processing, and wireless and encryption technologies. The company expects to make forthcoming announcements around strategic progress in these convergence technologies.

Toshiba will begin to reduce shipments of HD DVD players and recorders to retail channels, aiming for cessation of these businesses by the end of March 2008. Toshiba also plans to end volume production of HD DVD disk drives for such applications as PCs and games in the same timeframe, yet will continue to make efforts to meet customer requirements. The company will continue to assess the position of notebook PCs with integrated HD DVD drives within the overall PC business relative to future market demand.

This decision will not impact on Toshiba's commitment to standard DVD, and the company will continue to market conventional DVD players and recorders. Toshiba intends to continue to contribute to the development of the DVD industry, as a member of the DVD Forum, an international organization with some 200 member companies, committed to the discussion and defining of optimum optical disc formats for the consumer and the related industries.

Toshiba also intends to maintain collaborative relations with the companies who joined with Toshiba in working to build up the HD DVD market, including Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures, and DreamWorks Animation and major Japanese and European content providers on the entertainment side, as well as leaders in the IT industry, including Microsoft, Intel, and HP. Toshiba will study possible collaboration with these companies for future business opportunities, utilizing the many assets generated through the development of HD DVD."

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And so it's finally over, Blu Ray wins... maybe now I can convince Erica that we need a PS3... or actually how long do you think it will be before the XBOX 360 has an external Blu Ray player. I just hope this means quality of high def dvds will go up, and the cost of players will go down. I'm thinking $150 or less is optimal. We'll have to wait and see what happens next.
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blu ray wins this round...

Two big announcements in the "Format Wars" last week, might have marked the death knell for HD-dvd. And if not the final blows, they definitely are serious wounds. Because let's also keep in mind that this is a mere month and change since Warner's announced that they were dropping the HD format. The two heavy blows came when first Netflix announced that they were dropping HD-dvd completely, followed a day later by the largest US consumer electronics retailer Best Buy's decision to only publically endorse blu ray. Of course as a retailer they can't drop HD-dvd altogether, but they intend to only display, and 'recommend' blu ray.

These moves are maybe not unexpected to people who live and breathe by the format wars (obviously not me if you know just about anything). But what does it mean for the rest of us? Well, I think we're getting some pretty clear signs that the war is winding down to a close. Oh I know, every time in the past when I've said that, it seems like we get some new victory on the side that was losing so badly before, but we're coming down to the wire and the decisions being made now are the ones that will matter the most. I've heard the arguments that we're just going to evolve right out of hard copy media, but frankly I don't buy it. Not now, not yet. I sure don't think old school dvd is going anywhere anytime soon. In fact I bet old school dvd (playing) technology exists well through the entire life cycle of high definition hard copy media, and only actually dies when blu ray or whatever phases out into a purely digital age. But that's beside the point I suppose. I think this portends the end of the speculation. Does it mean I will go out and buy a PS3 next week? No, I wish it did. This is a sure step towards something more permanent though, and I am all for that kind of determination.

For now we'll have to wait and see what Paramount and Disney do when their reported temp contract ends with the HD camp in the spring and they need to make a decision. That, and as my friend Devon likes to remind me Apple's as yet undeclared decision, may make all the difference in the world.
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New Tube

Hey so I know I haven't been blogging a lot lately. Thats really just the price you pay for a new job :( I plan to catch up one of these days, but for now I think everyone will have to suffice with sporadic updates.

I do have some good news though. As some of you may know, my tv broke at the beginning of December. Well this weekend Erica and I took the plunge and got ourselves a new one. Not just any new one either. We've finally gotten ourselves an HDTV. It's really nothing super fancy but so far I have to say I'm really liking it.

The Dynex 32" flat-panel LCD HDTV.

Dynex is one of the Best Buy house brand, so while it's nothing too fancy it really has what were looking for, including 2 HDMI ports, and a S-video input connection (so we can string our PC through the tv), even though its only 720p it should serve us well enough. You can see more specs here if you're interested. With the Superbowl quickly approaching the sales have started and we got a pretty solid deal of a $459.99 in store price.

Additionally we have our brand new "naked DSL" internet service (we got the 3.0 mbps down plan) starting with AT&T on the 15th. This should be a very good tech week in our household.

More posts as soon as I can. Until then have a good one.
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Marvel goes DiG!tA1ll1l...

Wow. Today surely is a watershed moment for comics. The days of Marvel's timid dot-comics are over as the house that Stan built moves boldly into the digital future with the launch today of Marvels Digital Comics Unlimited.

For a subscription rate of $9.99 a month or $59.88 for the year (only $4.99 per month at that rate) you can gain access to some 2500 back issues of comics. These are high quality PDFs of each comic page archived and stored lovingly by Marvel's techheads. The company additionally plans to release at least 20 new old issues a week. In order to insulate the print version of their books Marvel intends to wait at least 6 months between the hard copy release and the digital archive, but we can expect a mix of old and new titles to show up at a fairly rapid pace after that. Here's an article with a bit more explanation directly from Marvel on all this.

For now the collection includes some classic comic milestones that you might never have read before. Sure we've all checked out Amazing Fantasy 15 (the first appearance of Spider-Man), but have you seen the first showdown between the Thing and the Hulk, The Avengers and Power Pack, the first Black Panther, or introduction of the Silver Surfer, or what about some of the newer stuff, like the Civil War issues, or Annihilation, maybe you missed those minis tied into Universe X, or how about some of the Ultimate titles, or some of those great Spidey miniseries like Blue, or India. I know I missed the Captain America: Truth miniseries where they retconned the entire origin of the super-soldier program. Here's some officially selected highlights, and some other recommendations you might want to check out too.

I really recommend you go and at least have a look around the Digital Comics Unlimited site. They are offering 250 comics up for free viewing for a limited time so you can try out their service. I'm not exactly sure whats in that selection of free stuff right now as their site has been so slammed today its only working off and on, but I'm sure there is something you'll find of interest.

Now if only I had a good color version of the Sony Reader, I would be totally set. One day I'm sure that will exist though, hopefully sooner rather than later. Beacause this is a really great move on Marvel's part. Bold decisive action. And I think legitimately still in time for them to figure out how to save themselves with the current and severe drop in print media sales. This won't make them a ton of money just yet, but its a really good start. Thank you Marvel for going for the digital market finally. It may not work all that well at first but I applaud the effort.

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Impending strike

Ok, I'm going to try to make this reasonably short, party because I don't really understand it that well, but also because its pretty darn complicated and I'd rather say too little than get things really wrong. For some initial basics you might want to check out this wiki page.

As we all should know at this point, the WGA (Writer's Guild of America) is facing a looming strike. Their contract with the AMPTP (Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers) will expire on October 31, '07 and for a number of reasons, many of which I'm sure I'm not familiar with, it looks like a general strike will be called for.

This recent article in Variety highlights some of the issues being faced at the moment. It seems like the main reasons behind the strike include the AMPTPs failure to acknowledge or compensate writers for work distributed through "new media" methods, archaic regulations regarding royalties as they pertain to sales of dvds (which as we all know are humongous now), and the failure to acknowledge the work of writers on "reality television". Yes. I know I'm sure there are many more reasons than that, but I get a bit lost in the minutiae of it all; sorry.

I'm not terribly sure how I feel about the whole thing. I mean I definitely agree with the writers, but I suppose selfishly, I don't want this to affect my entertainment. It is what it is though, and I just wanted to present some of the basics of the situation here for people who are reading this and might not know about the current happenings.

There has been a rash of scripts being written in Hollywood for the past few months. To be clear, if a strike does happen, there can be no new scripting done on union projects. The studios and networks CAN ONLY create union approved material. That means this potential strike will also seriously affect the Director Guild, the Screen Actors Guild, and about 15 other smaller unions. So both the film studios and the tv networks are stockpiling projects that are completed and ready to go so they can wait out a potentially long strike if the need arises. Check out this pretty interesting list of projects that are set to be fastracked by the various studios, who are hoping to get the scripts done under the wire if a strike does happen (presumably most of these scripts are done by now). Also I'd like to recommend the Dealfatigue blog for some interesting thoughts on the matter (post 1, post 2) from the perspective of an entertainment lawyer in LA.

Obviously this could be a very big deal... well it already is a big deal. But we're still not sure how it will affect whats happening in Hollywood. Maybe the Guild will actually agree to an extension of their current contract while a study group investigates the impact of new media tech on the industry, but it doesn't sound like it. I haven't found a really good 'layman' site that keeps up on this. If someone knows one, please let me know as it gets a bit much for me. I'll report what I can on the strike here, but if you're really interested you might just have to keep an eye on Variety.

In the coming weeks, anything can happen. Let's hope for the best, and keep our fingers crossed that a deal can be struck saving us hardcore fans some hassle and keeping us looking at quality entertainment well into 2009, and beyond.

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Unbox and Journeyman

So last night I decided to finally try Amazon Unbox, which I talked about here before. Now that NBC has made the decision that it will not go with iTunes for its next season tv shows, a horrible move if you ask me, they are launching themselves onto Unbox exclusively with a bang.

NBC is offering a number of its new season pilots for free on Unbox, and as you know I've been waiting impatiently for Journeyman (officially premiering after Heroes on the 24th), so I decided I just had to partake in the Unbox revolution. And for the most part I was very impressed. Despite the whole DRM thing and having to watch it on the Unbox player, it was a very good experience. Thankfully their player is extremely nice, so I feel like it was well worth it.

But that's not really what I wanted to talk about here. What I wanted to talk about was the Journeyman pilot. See you have to understand that I have terrible luck picking shows. From Invasion, to Daybreak, and Smith, to The Black Donnelly's. Sure some of the shows I get into are popular, but it seems like when I pre-pick shows to be the best of the new season they often fail. Journeyman has been my most anticipated new show of the season, so you can imagine my trepidation. I want it to be great, even better than its obvious progenitor Quantum Leap, and despite a few murky leaps in logic I think it just might be.

Journeyman has a lot going for it. Especially Kevin McKidd the lead, who thankfully plays it smart. I get extremely frustrated when people in movies or tv shows wont admit the obvious, because 'that's just too incredible...' This protagonist realizes pretty quickly that hes traveling in time, he realizes what he's doing and he even acknowledges the dangers and potential paradoxes right upfront. Also a big plus in my book, it doesn't stumble into the pitfall of Early Edition in that yes he CAN tell people about the time traveling. And while yes I admit a few scenes like 'the Intervention' were really a bit too fast coming, overall this show plays it very smart and realistic. My only concern within the context of the show is the as yet unexplained physics and rules of his travelling; even in this pilot episode I felt like it didn't really make a lot of sense.

I hope this show can find an audience. The Heroes lead in is great, and I think the show has a lot of potential. We'll see if the world is really ready to accept a new time travel show. For my money I'll say yes, and hope my luck with predictions is changing.

relax with Justin.tv

Ok, so I've now spent the past hour watching Justin.tv and I have to say I understand how you could get sucked into it. I mean sure, it's boring for the most part but somehow this real life Truman Show/Ed TV thing is also very comforting. As with much of my life, especially when I'm bored I turn to the always top notch pop culture reporting of Pop Candy. Today they hav show me the light that is Justin Kan, and his site www.Justin.tv . It's really something that we should've all been expecting. Justin, a 23 year old San Francisco based entrepreneur (not sure what that really means) and his friends have rigged a system where Justin wears a small camera and microphone around with him everywhere. Then he streams the signal directly onto his web site. What he sees you see. And he never takes the camera off. YES he films in the bathroom (camera pointed to the ceiling), and in bed (not sure how he does that one). Justin is like the ultimate Twitter kid, and even though all I've seen him do is cook up some burgers, and type on his Blackberry, it's still pretty entertaining somehow. It's almost comforting to just have him hanging out there, in the background...

Today Justin is being sponsored by the film Disturbia, which is basically a hipped up remake of Rear Window. So he's under 'house arrest', being encouraged to spy on his neighbors, and has hung posters for the film all over his apartment. Exactly, this is his job?! very odd...

Check out the stream...

aaaarrrgh

so frustrating!

Ok people. Word to the wise. When installing the new update to iTunes remember to unplug you ipod from your computer. I just lost all of my videos. And my podcasts got transferred onto a playlist called podcast. Thank god I've still got the songs. Thank god it wasn't wiped.

But man, what a bummer...

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Track 50

a friend pointed me towards this great little web application today called Track 50.

Simply put, it's a website that will keep track of any band you like and then send you emails when that band is having a concert in your area. It's simple and seems to work well. I know that awhile ago I mentioned the pretty cool iTunes plugin called iConcertCal which does much the same thing only based on whatever you've got in your iTunes library. But for someone like me it didn't actually work that well in a practical sense. I have my music scattered and separated between 3 different computers as well as some being just stuck on my ipod so while I think in principal its great; it didn't end up helping me too much.

This Track 50 is very straightforward though. I definitely think you should check it out. Although, I'm not sure if its set up for all over the country yet, they do have listings for shows in most major cities. Oh and they've even got this handy little flash badge to paste onto your blog

While I can't go to every show and already have stuff planned for many of the dates, already Track 50 has reminded me to get tickets to Arcade Fire, which I did, and I'm about to get some for JET. Very cool, eh?

Supercool Music App

This is hands down the coolest little application that I've seen in a long while. iConcertCal is an iTunes plugin, that you can download and install simply, which scans the music folder on your hard drive, then coordinates with Ticketmaster and other online ticketing sites as well as specific venues themselves, and displays a calendar of upcoming concerts in your area! And it all works in the iTunes window!!

It seems to work very well, although I've only tried it here at the office, I've already found a few newer shows that I didn't know about. I did try manual adding a few names of bands that weren't already on the crawlers search list (because that music's not on my work computer), but I'm not sure if it worked or not as nothing new showed up. It's not a super advanced program or anything, I just like it when someone comes along and uses technology to complete the obvious connections. This is a great little tool, and I'm sure it will get even more functional as times goes on. Seriously, I don't know why Apple isn't doing this themselves and then selling you the tickets directly. I'm sure they could make a tidy profit. But then again, they'd probably overcharge, and I bet something like that is already in the works anyhow.

Go check this out. It's really a great little plugin, its free, and I don't think you'll regret getting it.

Interactive Text

I don't know if when I explained my whole Tov thing in this post if you actually took it seriously or not, but there really is a point to what I was saying. I've been thinking about it a bit more recently. I just KEEP running across situations over IM where misunderstanding occur because someone doesn't understand what the other person means. This kind of half way real time conversation like IM, web chats, or text messaging are really still pretty new, but I think that many people have found them to be a really good middle ground communication measure. Kelly over at the Based On Experience Podcast talked about this very issue in one of her episodes in one of their episodes a while ago. For the life of me I can't figure out which one (somewhere around ep#7 i think) but you all should be listening to them anyways, so you probably already heard it. In essence she, along with her cohost Bobby were talking about how people set up personal boundaries, and that despite or perhaps inspite of the rapid advancements in communication technology, socially its a much more complex world today. Assessing and understanding your boundaries, and then questioning them, is important. Remember how a few years ago you'd never used IM? or remember the first time you sent a text message? Internet culture is bringing people together like never before, but are we ready for it? Am I? I like these middle ground forms of communication. the stunted kind of conversation that IM provides because it is safe, I understand the rules (for the most part), and I know that I am always in control. In another five years will everyone be listing their Skype number online for true VOIP communication? maybe. For now though I know that I am not quite comfortable letting someone I've never seen, met, or communicated in any way, call me to TALK on the phone. Net-relationships are complicated enough, and I like the filtered approach. For now.

This is where something like TOV could potentially come into play. Yes I know that its kinda goofy in any kind of practical way, but as a symbol I think it has merit. Imagine along with me for a moment. What if there was some kind of standardized text animations that everyone knew and everyone could follow... imagine if the colors of words meant inflection? Why don't we have this. What I really want is Interactive Text. The color association is easy. We already associate colors with emotions. Red for love, or anger, blue is cool and relaxing, and is green which has natural qualities and depth, black is dark, important and imposing, and others like yellow, or white, or fucha can mean different things to different people. Now that wouldn't be too hard to nail down somewhat more definitively (at least for these purposes). The other key to the Interactive Text is simple animations. I'm really not sure this isn't already totally possible now, but what I see is say taking a word that you've just typed in an IM, and with the click of a button applying a specific animation to it that conveys your intended emotion. Say you want the word to really resound affirmative, why not a slow bob up and down, negative left to right. How about for confusion we could have a slight twisted tension on the edges of the font, or a text that squishes and repairs to signify playfulness or sillyness.

These concepts aren't new, in fact there are already a number of logical animations out there for specific emotions. This really hit home with me after listening to the last episode of The Gen Y Retrocast (#32) where they talked about Sesame Street. I went onto YouTube and found a bunch of old cartoons from the show. Things like this and this and this. ok, maybe those aren't the perfect examples but you'll know what I meant if you watch them. Certain animations are already in our brains, we already understand them, so why not put them to use for some added level of integrated communication.

Interactive Text is better than TOV, in fact it eliminates the need for tov which never really worked all that well to begin with. What I want is the ability to just click a word as I type and apply an emotional context, especially sarcasm. Even if I have hold down a function key, I would.

If this already exists out there please someone let me know where and how... Yes maybe in 5 years society and I will be ready to just skip this whole jilted middle ground form of communication and jump right into relationships, but for now, i think something like Interactive Text could really improve the as is experience.

TOV = WTF?!

So a weird sort of thing happened that I don't really know how to explain. On my latest podcast, On Hold...ep026, which I hope you're all listening to ;) Devon and I talked about this thing we've been kicking around for the past year or so. T.O.V., tone of voice. Basically we spent so much time on IM that we developed our own shorthand to an extent. One of the problems though was that we spent a lot of time insulting each other and or just joking around. Of course we never meant to really be mean or rude to each other. I mean I like Devon, and we're friends and all, but I don't feel like I'm really in a place where I can honestly call him an asshole. At least to his face... haha, ok ok just kidding. But sometimes that sort of thing just comes out in an IM, and that is usually the point where emoticons fall short. Tone of voice is totally important when talking with someone, especially if you spend a lot of time being sarcastic with each other. So the conception of tov was pretty organic. Even if it kills the punchline tov can make sure you don't accidentally insult someone for reals.

- Ex -
Devon: Seriously man, are you always this stupid or did you make a special effort today?
Geoff: jeezus murphy...
Geoff: you should sit down and give your mind a rest man.
Devon: Keep talking Geoff, someday you'll say something intelligent.
Geoff: You jackass
Geoff: ...
Geoff: TOV = sarcastic

Now I know what you're thinking. Genius. TOV is a great word that you will begin using immediately. But where will all the credit go? To Devon or I where it belongs? No. because someone decided for some reason to Cancel my submission of the acronym in question to The Urban Dictionary. And I'm really just wondering why someone would do this. If you look on my submission status page you'll see that it was "cancelled before it was reviewed by the editors".... Seriously WTF?! I just can't imagine why someone would do this. Doesn't make sense. Could it have been someone who listens to the podcast. I mean I did put that status link in the show notes. but still... why? I know it wasn't Devon. I suppose it could've been Laura who I made a little fun of with the example, but really that seems extreme even for her A.D.D. addled mind. Honestly, I just don't get it.

It's not like a huge deal or anything. Especially once I realized that UD doesn't have logins and I didn't expose my name/password or anything. And I know I could just resubmit the word, but if I offended someone with it or something I'd like to know why. Totally weird, eh?

iTunes movies

Movies! iTunes will have movies, available today through the music store! It's $12.99 for pre-order and first week of new releases, then $14.99 after that. Most titles apparently will be $9.99 though. The movies will be near dvd quality with 640x480 resolution, you will be able to record more than one movie at a time (unlike Amazon Unbox), and can watch it while you download. We'll get Dolby Surround sound on the films, and the movie store will become international in 2007. Movies to appear on the store today will include titles from Buena Vista (Disney, Pixar, Touchstone, Miramax).

Also, the box has arrived. The long rumored Apple streaming video tv box; iTV. Not coming until Q1 '07 it will have USB, ethernet, 802.11 wireless, component video, optical audio, and HDMI ports. It will work with both PCs and Macs and cost $299, and I suppose makes Apple finally a reasonable competor to Microsoft and the mediacenter pc.

check iLounge, Engadget, TUAW for more...

Amazon Unbox, Apple Showtime event

A couple quick things so far today.

my podcast On Hold... got a mentioned on one of the most famous podcasts in the world The Dawn and Drew Show. It was very exciting. For listeners, you'll know that in On Hold...ep024 we had a special guest star of Devon's roomie Laura on the show. Well ,she called into the D&D show and gave us a shout out along with her comment and they played it. Hooray for us! I don't really know if that would lead to more listeners, but hey its still cool. Obviously I don't know numbers, as that seems to be a closely guarded podcast secret, but I know that Dawn and Drew get somewhere in the range of 100 000 listeners per episode. We, don't quite get that... but maybe one day ;)

The Apple store is down right now. I'm hoping that means that after their press conference today well see some movies up for sale there.... more to come on that definitely.

This past week Amazon launched their service Amazon Unbox. I browsed through it and it seems fairly standard. They do have movies, both for rental ($3.99) or for purchase ($14.99+) but there are some really annoying restrictions on them. Seriously I mean it would probably work if you rolled out every movie for like $10. Its a friggin digital copy! I would never pay that much, especially considering I can only download it to two machines, then only to two portable devices from said machines. Yes they allow you to back it up, once. And then once it's burnt to dvd you can only play it on the same machine you downloaded it on. Basically its retarded. They did have a few tv shows on there that I hadn't seen on iTunes, notably Star Trek TOS, and Enterprise. They also had a few animes, Escaflowne, Gundam SEED, and Outlaw Star. However these anime cost a whopping $3.99 an episode! It's practically criminal. I have a feeling whatever iTunes offers it will blow Amazon out of the water.

I'm going rock climbing this evening for my very first time! Should be a barrel of monkey fun! I'm being taken by a cool new friend from work, Tara. Very exciting, I wish Erica could come but she's just too busy. Anyhow, that's all for now. Maybe I'll be back later today with Apple news. bye bye.

ps - ilounge. has good coverage of the event going on right now. So far they've announced 2nd gen ipod shuffle, 2nd gen nanos, a new 5GB ipod (60% brighter screen, games from iTunes Music Store, iTunes 7, and an updated iTunes store with more album art, some increased organization stuff, video resolution increase to (640x480), and NFL season 2006 available. I'm gonna go watch the rest now. Later.

Wii vs. PS3

hahahaha....

That's very very funny. And although, I don't know if I've said this on the blog, Erica and I are planning on getting a Wii, and that's all. The PS3 is way too expensive. We're going the sfe route. Besides I don't want to participate in the stupid new Blu Ray vs HD-DVD format war until its well over. In my opinion SONY has made some serious misteps, and I don't know if they'll be able to win this one...

Zune

So I’ve spent some of my morning reading up on the Zune. That’s the name (at least for now) for Microsoft’s new handheld media device, that has the “potential” or so people claim to crush the iPod. I have my doubts as to whether that’s true, or really even possible at the moment, but it’s definitely an interesting device. You might know the device under its original code name the Argo. Here’s a pic of it:



I got a lot of my info on this from Engadget which is a pretty fantastic website. Check out this story from Engadget for their run down on the rumored details. That’s right; nothing is official yet… HERE is the original article that turned me onto the player. And then HERE is the news from yesterday that provided a bunch more info. Check them out they are short articles. I’ll wait. Or even better, if you want the full run down go listen to the latest installment of the Engadget Podcast (#82 - yes they’re finally back!). These guys KNOW what they’re talking about, so listen up.

Based on the rumored specs and what I’ve gleaned from Internet The Zune will be pretty cool, but maybe not as cool as the perhaps-a-little-too-much-in-fantasyland new “true” iPod video (READ) Truth is, non of these details are Official yet. The big features of the Zune, wireless download, which includes a social LAN potential, meaning I can trade songs with my buddy on the fly (who theoretically might need another Zune but hopefully can have any networked device). A song will be available for trade 10 times. The Engadget guys likened this to the functionality of the MusicGremlin which is currently just a first generation device but has some potential, read a good review of it over at MP3.com right HERE. On the negative side for the Zune though, rumor has it that every song will have to have the PlaySafe (I think it’s called) DRM tag. EVERY song. That’s right, no support for unencoded MP3?! Is that for real? My friend Devon and I were speculating that maybe they just need to do this as some kind of token gesture for their partners. Obviously URGE or Vongo don’t want their potentially semi-exclusive (at the moment) material supplanted by people illegally file sharing. But MS is definitely not going to win the market share if they don’t and ultimately I think that if they say for example were to release the Zune with this DRM law easily circumvented, hackable as it were, then it would be fine. Power-users will hack their Zune, and keep using bit-torrents for file sharing, and everyone else won’t care and will suck it up and use the URGE music store. It works for Apple and iTunes, so why not MS?

The really big thing about Microsoft releasing a device like this though, and this is something that really only MS could do, is that they can integrate it with their other products. In fact, if the rumors are true, then this could essentially be the centerpiece (or at least the portable piece) of you new and fully integrated line of MS hard and software. It will be running a (most likely modified) version of Pocket Media Center, so it will work with your PC, as long as your running XP. It will definitely incorporate their new Live Anywhere Platform (READ) which MS has said will be incorporated into next-gen smart phones, and is already tied into the XBOX Live service. So what their building isn’t just a single device, but a link in a chain; a family of devices, some new, some old. The Engadget guys compared this functionality somewhat to the new Gigabeat S and it’s style (it also runs on the portable media center OS). Check out this interesting video product review over at CNET HERE.

The Zune will, of course, has to work well with its other friends. If you’ve seen the Beta for the new Windows Media Player 11, then you’ll know exactly what direction MS is thinking their going. Check it HERE. Looking at WMP11 is of course, like exploring a prelude to the style we can expect to see from MS Vista. So you can expect more integration there. What about URGEVongo? Apple is rumored to be announcing a film distribution/rental agreement through the iTunes music store, at their upcoming press conference on Aug 8th. I think that’s the Worldwide Developers Conference. Word is that the Zune will support Sirius, and incorporate a local FM tuner. What terrestrial, and satellite radio together?! As a podcaster that makes me nervous… haha. Anyhow, There are a lot of ‘other’ partners in the mix here. This confluence of media is exciting yes, but its also really tricky and hard to keep track of. I’ve been waiting my entire life for a single ultimate device that will actually do everything I want (which is quite a lot). Does it look like the Zune is going there? No not really. But it sure is interesting, and MS can definitely give Apple a run for their money. Considering how they’ve reportedly subsidized the XBOX over the years I wouldn’t be surprised to see MS make a ‘long term’ serious play for this ever growing media market. The least we can hope is that it will at encourage Everyone to step up their game a bit, and move me one step closer to my universal media device.