Zune Reviewed

Ok, sorry this has taken so long, but between school and work, it’s been hard to do anything. I know there are tons of reviews for the Zune already out there but I just wanted to write one on my own.

First off the software took two or so lifetimes to install and update. When it was done I had my 3rd player (Itunes, WMP, and Zune) but what I liked about this was the interface of the Zune player. It didn’t make copies of my entire library like Itunes did. The library was nice and split up into 3 categories, music movies, and pictures. First thing it did after i told it what music to upload, was to sync that music. The biggest issue I had with this was that if you reformat your comp then your Zune losses the feature of automatic syncing. Unless you want to delete everything on the Zune to change it’s home. I blame RIAA and DMCA for that…
Next videos are good to watch on the Zune. I mean the quality is good, and everything. My issue here is that I haven’t found a decent video converter so my movies or clips have a nice metallic tone to them. other than that The sideways interface it perfect. The whole menu was good, a bit laggy in parts but still good and easy to navigate.
The wireless feature is very cool in my own opinion, my friend has a Zune and we share music and movies. The 3 plays in 2 days thing is horrible, but I can flag it so next time I get on the marketplace I can find and buy the song. Another cool thing is if you close the player you can still charge the Zune and you can listen to your music at the same time. The remote doesn’t seem to work if it’s not dock with the computer though so it was kind of pointless to buy it unless, you have good computer speakers.

Size is a big issue for some people, for me not so much since I make sure my pants have big pockets. But the Zune is considerably larger than the Ipod even though , the screen is a bit bigger.
All in all I’d give the Zune 8.5/10

Safari Beta 3 for Windows?!?!

So now the Safari Beta 3 is alavible to all windows users, and I’m not to sure if my windows/linux comp will explode if I do this (I kid, I kid) but I’ll try it out for the sake of reviewing and being unbiased.
here is the link if you haven’t heard about it yet
http://www.apple.com/safari/

Wrapup of D day

Engadget was good enough to post an entire wrap up on the nights events here:
This is all from engadget
Live coverage
Steve Jobs and Bill Gates: Historic discussion live from D 2007
Steve Jobs live from D 2007
Steve Ballmer live from D 2007
Palm’s Jeff Hawkins live from D 2007

Apple
iPhone to get third party apps
Apple TV gets 160GB disk… and YouTube too
iTunes Plus and EMI’s DRM-free music hands-on
iTunes Plus DRM-free music now official(er)

Microsoft
Microsoft Surface – surface and gesture based computing lands
Microsoft Surface hands-on

Palm
Palm Foleo hands-on
Palm Foleo gallery
Palm Foleo announced

Etc.
Livescribe shows off Leapfrog Fly-esque pen computer for grown-ups
QiGO announces Internet Content Keys

If there was anything else I’ll add it later on in the day or please feel free to comment on it

Jobs and Gates big interview

heres are the links I’ll sum it up tomorrow
Engadget
Gizmodo

Microsoft Surface

http://www.microsoft.com/surface/
This is the newest in Microsoft’s product line. A touch screen table, now there was some news about this a while back but looks like their finally going to be releasing it. This is apretty nifty device, I’ll try to get out more tonight, got all the specs that Microsoft released and I’ll see about posting them up.

Leaked: Windows Live Messenger 8.5

Here are some pictures that I found from digg and a stumble





From what I’m hearing, the leaked version is only in Spanish and you have to work some magic to get it to work in English. Also it doesn’t appear to work with Messenger Plus!. Plugins haven been dropped so other than that nothing much else here. Here’s the link in case I missed something.
To me it looks nice, but I don’t think I’ll get it for my Vista/Ubuntu laptop. For now I’ll be sticking with my Trillian

E3 Schedule Released

-from gamewad
E3, or at least the shadow of the former expo, “min-E3,” will be held this year from July 11th to the 13th at the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, California. The ESA recently released a schedule of events for the show on the official E3 website.

Microsoft will get things started this year with their pre-E3 conference at 8:30pm on July 10th. Nintendo will be up next, hosting their conference at 9:00 the next morning. Sony will take up the rear with a conference at 11:30am on the 11th.

Third parties will be granted conference time, as well. The full show schedule follows:

7/10/07:

* 8:30pm – Microsoft Press Conference

7/11/07:

* 9:00am – Nintendo Press Conference
* 9:00am-5:30pm – Meeting suites open at the Fairmont Hotel
* 11:30am – Sony Press Conference
* 1:00-6:30pm – Barker Hanger open to view games
* 2:00pm – Electronic Arts conference
* 3:15pm – Activision conference
* 4:30pm – Midway conference
* 5:45pm – Konami conference

7/12/07:

* 8:00am – Take-Two conference
* 9:00am-5:30pm – Meeting suites open at the Fairmont Hotel
* 9:15am – THQ conference
* 10:30am – Ubisoft conference
* 1:00-6:30pm – Barker Hanger open to view games
* 1:00pm – Namco Bandai conference
* 3:30pm – Disney Interactive conference

7/13/07:

* 9:00am-3:30pm – Meeting suites open at the Fairmont Hotel
* 11:00am-3:30pm – Barker Hanger open to view games

On the hangar floor, booths will be set up for over 30 companies. Some notables who won’t have formal conferences include Capcom, Square-Enix, and SEGA, among others.

*Eddie R Inzauto – Senior Editor, GameWad.com

Zune to get wireless downloads, version 2 hardware, flash player

-from Zune boards

Sometimes you can never know for sure, but we’ve got some pretty convincing material from a Zune source which shows a beta build of firmware v1.4 (shown as 2.1.4, perhaps as an internal designation). Apparently you’ll finally be able to put your WiFi to good use (other than being a part of “the social”) by using open WiFi hotspots (no word on WiFi you have the key for) and Microsoft points for downloading tracks. (Sorry, no word about subscriptions, syncing, and the like. And yes, we know the wireless icon is missing; we were told it was accidentally omitted from the download UI in this build.) Also up to bat in the near future, further confirmation that we can expect Zune v2 and a flash Zune in the next month or so — perhaps just in time to remind people that Apple isn’t the only game in town when the iPhone hype hits its peak. One more picture after the break.

Future Zunes to be Free with Subscription?

Microsoft might be taking a page from the mobile phone playbook, offering cheap or free Zunes for customers willing to sign up for a long-term service contract. Zune marketing director Jason Reindorp stated that they were looking at using the all-you-can-eat Zune Pass subscription like a phone contract.

This is a really interesting idea, and it could be the thing that finally makes the Zune stand out when compared with the iPod (besides the pretty useless “social” WiFi features). The idea of being able to download as much music as you want and getting a free or cheap player out of the deal makes a subscription service seem pretty sweet.

If given the option between spending $250 on a 30GB iPod that you need to fill yourself, or a free Zune that you’re locked into paying what would work out to $360 for over two years (at current rates) that you get a subscription service with, what would you choose? –Adam Frucci

Zune for free with a phone-like plan? [Zune Online]

Zune the next to drop DRM?

-from engadget
After this morning’s big announcement we had to head over to get the other guy’s take on the news. Microsoft was happy to oblige and furnish us with the usual boilerplate PR quote, including a very interesting bit on the future direction of DRM in the Zune.

Microsoft’s response, specifically regarding the Apple / EMI announcement:
“Consumers have indicated [having DRM free music] is important to them so Zune has been working with a variety of partners to head in this direction. [Emphasis ours] This is a time of transition for the music industry and Microsoft is committed to striking a balance between delivering the best consumer experience while still protecting the rights of the content owners.”

Microsoft’s general response with regard to DRM:
“Regardless of the outcome of DRM for music downloads, DRM technologies will still have a key role in enabling businesses involving digital content. Subscription music services are a good example – they use DRM to enable consumers to have unlimited access to literally millions of music tracks. Other areas include the delivery of high quality video content, such as movies. Our role continues to be to deliver flexible DRM technology that provides choice for the content owner in how they distribute their content and choice for the consumer so that they have access to a wide variety of high-quality content and ways to enjoy that content.”

There you have it, ladies and gents. Microsoft is working behind the scenes to shake some of the DRM from the Zune.