Zune Pics

Gizmodo has a picture of the upcoming Zune by Microsoft.  The Zune, said to be the iPod killer, looks fairly ugly to me.  There is not a lot of information on it, but as it comes available I'll have it posted.

More information was added at Gizmodo here, but the only thing that intrigues me is this:

FM support is fairly complete, with both an FM tuner and an FM transmitter so you can beam the music to your car. The FM transmitter also feeds up Song and Artist information so you can see what's playing from your car stereo (if it supports that feature, like in GM cars). Pretty neat.

While this is possible with an iPod, it's an add-on that you have to purchase separately.  I haven't done so yet, but I would like one for my car.  I'm sure Apple isn't far behind with their newest iPods being announced in December, and a handy feature like this would be nice to see.

Engadget also has information on the Zune, courtesy of iLounge, but really it says much of the same.  One feature that did stick out was listed here:

...but of course the Zune's killer app is WiFi. iLounge says that you'll be allowed to "loan" songs to other users for a day, which they can proceed to buy from the Zune music store, and you'll also be able to stream music to a WiFi-enabled Xbox 360, but we're not sure if a hard drive will be required to pull it off. At a purported $300 pricetag, we can't tell if the Zune will have what it takes to challenge the iPod -- iLounge, naturally, has their doubts -- but from the writeup it does seem like the Zune will have at least one heavily bandied feature: video.

'Loan' songs to friends?  Since everything digital is made of 1's and 0's this'll be cracked in no time.  You can 'loan' your song to your friend and they take it home, put it on their PC, crack it, put it back on the Zune, and away they go.  It'll only be a matter of time.  Look at the '360.  How long did it take people to crack the system?  No time at all.  How much effort did MS put into designing a system where people couldn't copy their friends games?  Too much for the amount of effort it took to crack their system.  Anyway, off topic a bit.

The technical details of the Zune will reveal whether or not it'll be worth switching over to iPod, or at the very least, going with both.

Tags: Microsoft, Zune, iPod

Blogger 2.0

Blogger seems to have an upgrade available.  I read it somewhere this evening and thought that I'd give it a try.  More on that in a second.

Google on Monday took the wraps off a new version of its Blogger service, which adds a number of new features in an attempt to catch up to its rivals. On the list of additions are categorizing posts with labels, controlling who can read a blog, and modifying the design without editing HTML.

While it's in beta, only a limited number of Blogger users are being offered the ability to migrate their blog to the new service, although those interested can create a new account on the beta. Google hasn't said when it plans to officially launch the new version, but notes that it will be tied to the company's Google Accounts system.

I had to sign up, which annoyed me because I already have a blogger account, why do I want two?  Anyway, after fiddling around with it for a while I came to the realization that it's not near complete and shouldn't have been released to the public yet.

There are neat features, like the drag and drop layout feature, but even that is far from perfect.  I have a feeling it won't be fully functional, to most users preference, even after the 'final' version is done.

Some more links:

Business Wire
VNUNet
MacWorld
Pocket-lint

[betanews]

Tags: Blogger, beta, update, 2.0

Imaging of Hydrogen Fuel Cells

While probably not that interesting to most people, this really intrigues me.

Thanks to a new and improved imaging instrument at the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), scientists now can conduct detailed surveillance on the comings and goings of water inside hydrogen fuel cells—a piece of intelligence key to making the technology practical for powering future automobiles.

With visualization powers 10 times better than those achieved previously, researchers can “see” water production and removal in fuel cells under a range of simulated operating conditions, from arctic cold to desert heat.

“This as-it-happens, inside view is essential because fuel-cell performance depends on a delicate balance,” explains NIST physicist Muhammad Arif, who leads the NIST team that developed the instrument. “Too little—or too much—water can shut it down.

”Better water management is fundamental to meeting targets for fuel cell performance, reliability and durability. Reaching these targets, in turn, is integral to efforts to replace petroleum with hydrogen to power cars and trucks by 2020—the goal of President Bush’s Hydrogen Fuel Initiative.

I've studied Fuel Cells in the past, and I think that they're going to be the only solution in the future.  Oil doesn't last forever, and electric vehicles will only get us so far.  The problem, as far as I can tell, is going to be having the cars make the hydrogen themselves.  The solution is quite easy in the mock up I designed, but the implementation is difficult.  The size of the cars would be massive.

[nist]

Tags: Hydrogen, Fuel Cells, Imaging

One Terabyte Drives

Desktop hard drives holding 1 terabyte, or 1,000 gigabytes, of storage will likely be announced in 2006, said Bill Healy, senior vice president of product strategy and marketing at Hitachi Global Storage Technologies. These drives, which will have a 3.5-inch diameter, are expected to be incorporated into PCs and home servers. Healy wouldn’t say what companies would announce first. Sources at Seagate, however, said Seagate plans to come out with 1TB 3.5-inch drives by late 2006 or early 2007.

It's not that big of a stretch for some hard drive makers. Hitachi already sells a 500GB drive, while rival Seagate Technology started shipping a 750GB drive to desktop makers in April. Seagate also sells a home storage device with two 500GB drives to make up 1 terabyte. Drive density effectively doubles every two years and increases steadily over the two-year period; hence, a terabyte drive is on the horizon, Healy said.

The next line is quite funny, actually.

Granted, few people really need 1 terabyte of storage.

Really?  I could use one or two.  Especially when CDs and DVD backups don't last forever.  At least HDDs last longer, especially in a RAID configuration.  With file sizes only growing (HD-DVD backups on the PC anyone?) it's not enough to have one TB...  How about 200TB drives?  That would mean I wouldn't have to upgrade for a while.

[zdnet]

Tags: Hitachi, 1 terabyte, HDD

120GB iPod?

We can only hope.

Seagate has announced that they will be launching a new 1.8" Hard Drive possibly for the expected iPod in December. iPods have had the 60GB limit for quite some time and it is proposed that their new rumored iPod will be released and break the current maximum storage capacity.

This is currently just speculation, the image is also just a concept. (Seagate has announced the 120GB drive but they have not yet promised its use in the Apple iPod.) However, it is very possible....sorry about the mix up guys.

All these events are obviously happening around the Christmas Season....in hopes to spark up another iPod frenzy.

Would be nice.  I haven't grabbed a 60GB yet, but with all the podcasts and music crammed onto my iPod, I may just hold out for something even bigger.  Of course, once that happens I'll get into the video end of it and 120GB won't be close to enough.

[pcexposure]

Tags: iPod, 120GB, Seagate

Pirate Party's Darknet

The second one I've run across today?  That's odd, isn't it?  Seems that everyone is tired of the RIAA and the MPAA.

Today, the Swedish Pirate Party launched a new Internet service that lets anybody send and receive files and information over the Internet without fear of being monitored or logged. In technical terms, such a network is called a "darknet". The service allows people to use an untraceable address in the darknet, where they cannot be personally identified.

"There are many legitimate reasons to want to be completely anonymous on the Internet," says Rickard Falkvinge, chairman of the Pirate Party. "If the government can check everything each citizen does, nobody can keep the government in check. The right to exchange information in private is fundamental to the democratic society. Without a safe and convenient way of accessing the Internet anonymously, this right is rendered null and void."

File sharing of music, films, and other forms of culture is where the surveillance of Internet addresses has attracted the most attention, largely because the entertainment industry has been so aggressive in suing Internet users for copyright infringement, suing college students and single mothers alike without concern.

"But there are much more fundamental values at stake here than copyright," Rickard Falkvinge says. "The new technology has brought society to a crossroads. The only way to enforce today's unbalanced copyright laws is to monitor all private communications over the Internet. Today's copyright regime cannot coexist with an open society that guarantees the right to private communication."

PirateParty

Tags: Pirate Party, Darknet, Filesharing

Fox and Myspace

I think the biggest question with this is:  Does Fox actually have any shows worth downloading?

Fox Entertainment Group is planning to distribute movies and TV shows to consumers from the company's network of Internet sites, including MySpace.com.

Fox, a division of News Corp., announced Monday that digital versions of TV shows such as "24" and "Prison Break," along with feature films, including "X-Men: The Last Stand," will eventually be available for download at Fox sites. Movies will go for $19.99, while TV episodes will cost $1.99.

The move is the latest sign that Hollywood studios are determined not to allow Apple Computer as much control over distribution digital content as the music industry handed over to Apple's music download site, iTunes. Apple has emerged as the gatekeeper when it comes to digital music, selling more songs than any other Web site. Movie and TV executives have said that they want a host of e-tailers offering their content.

Warner Bros. Entertainment has been among the most aggressive of the studios in the pursuit of such a strategy. In recent months, the company cut distribution deals with video-sharing site Guba and file-sharing system BitTorrent.

Apple already offers some Fox TV shows, but they can be watched only on Apple handheld products such as the iPod. In what Fox claims is an industry first, customers will be able to download a TV show or movie to two Windows-based computers, where each can then transfer the content to a single handheld device.

Fox's IGN Entertainment, which makes video games available for download, is providing the distribution platform for all of Fox's sites, and will also offer the first download, on the IGN's Direct2Drive Web site, sometime in October, Fox said in a statement.

The company did not disclose when its other sites will begin selling digital content.

news.com

Tags: Fox, TV, Download

OFF by Digital Douwd

Could this be the answer everyone is looking for?  Napster goes bye bye, Bittorrent seemed like a good idea, and now maybe OFF will be the answer everyone is looking for.

Closing letter to
the Copyright Industry Associations of America
from
the Digital Douwd

Attention:

Mark today on your calendar! They will need it for your obituary. Today is the day our future began and your future ended.

For three years now you have pursued your lawsuit campaign. Twenty thousand plus consumers, a dozen companies, and several very prominent friends of ours have fallen victim to your charade. We hoped you would see the obvious foolishness of your ways. Now, however, it appears clear that your shenanigans have gone on too long—You have begun deposing bereaved families of the deceased.

This can not stand. This will not stand. You will not stand. And from this day forward, your manipulative copyright claims will have no standing.

Today is the day we end all of your problems with consumer copyright infringement. For from today forward, consumers have no need for copies, infringing or otherwise. One common copy is all that is needed. One copy for everyone. Accessible forever.

Today we announce a massively distributed copy-less file system. A place where all content is available instantly, anonymously and to everyone, without breaking any laws. Today we announce the Owner-Free File System. An island of sanity in your sea of madness.

Feel free to monitor OFF’s communications. You’ll find no copying. Subpoena a few servers. You’ll find nothing that belongs to you. Only bits of randomness. This new internet infrastructure is truly a place without ownership. Nobody owns the OFF System. Nobody owns bits of randomness collected in the OFF System. There is beauty in randomness. As with all things beautiful, randomness’ value lies in the eye of the beholder. There is no intrinsic meaning in randomness but an infinite amount of extrinsic value. And behold that value we will.

This is not a threat. This is not a negotiation. This is the future—A future with no one to sue.

Adapt or die.

The Digital Douwd

Press Release

OFF information on Sourceforge

Tags: OFF, Digital Douwd

Laptop For Everyone

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has announced that an ambitious project to provide low-cost laptop computers to all of Thailand's millions of elementary school students will begin in October.

The U.S.-based "One Laptop per Child" project aims to deliver up to 30 computers to Thailand in October and 500 more in November, Thaksin said in a nationwide radio broadcast on Saturday.

"If this project is completed, each elementary school child will receive a computer to learn on at school," Thaksin said.

"Each elementary school child will receive a computer that the government will buy for them, free of charge, instead of books, because books will be found and can be read on computers," he said.

He said the first batch of laptops - costing around US$100 (euro79) each - will be distributed to children in rural areas where access to technology is limited. Those children will test the computers before the government proceeds with the project nationwide. The laptops are not yet in production.

The Thai government adopted the project a year ago after Thaksin met the "One Laptop Per Child" project's founder, Nicholas Negroponte, the state Thai News Agency reported Sunday.

Some critics say the project misallocates resources and that governments in developing countries would do better to invest in providing for more basic needs. Other countries that have shown interest in the project - which has been endorsed by the United Nations - include China and Brazil, Thaksin said.

The machines are being designed to be cheap and sturdy, and have minimum running costs. They will use the free Linux operating system, flash memory instead of a hard drive, and according to Thaksin will be able to run on an outboard electricity generator that is pumped by hand.

Thaksin entered business as an agent for IBM computer systems, and later built a telecommunications empire that made him one of Thailand's richest men.

The prime minister last week launched his campaign for re-election at polls scheduled for Oct. 15.

ON THE NET

One Laptop per Child: http://laptop.org/

[siliconvalley]

Technorati Tags : Laptop, Thailand

HD-DVD and Blu-ray Are Losers

Based on a new media research report that says neither the HD DVD nor its Blu-ray contender will deliver a "knock out" punch in the digital video ring, consumers may well think twice before upgrading their home theater system.

 

That's the conclusion drawn in a report by media researchers at The Screen Digest, which projects that both formats will coexist until some form of common ground is established, much like the current situation with recordable DVDs.

Opinions vary among industry watchers, some of whom argue that Blu-ray, backed by Sony and most of the major film studios, is in a better position to dominate.

"The net result of the format war and the publicity it has generated will be to dampen consumer appetite for the whole high definition disc category," said Ben Keen, Screen Digest chief analyst, in a statement.

Give and Take

The report notes that the success of DVD was based on the fact that it offered better quality and greater convenience than the VHS format it replaced. This time, though, both standards support similar features, and the differences are likely to confuse the average consumer.

For example, while the two formats look similar, a Blu-ray disc cannot be played on an HD DVD player and vice versa. And, Blu-ray discs hold up to 50 GB of content compared with HD DVD's 30 GB, Screen Digest notes.

What's not confusing is the price: each player is listing for as much as $1,500.

Edge to Blu-ray

"A battle between formats is not fought week by week; it is fought by lining up companies to support the format," said Forrester Research analyst Ted Schadler. "And the Blu-ray format continues to have much more support from manufacturers and studios than HD DVD."

The HD DVD format is backed by Toshiba, Microsoft, Universal, and others, while the Blu-ray format is backed by companies including Sony, Samsung, Phillips, Panasonic, Disney, and Twentieth Century Fox Studios, Warner Bros. and Paramount are backing both formats.

"It's time to put a stake in the ground regarding the future high-definition DVD format: Blu-Ray has won," Adrienne Downey, senior analyst at Semico Research, wrote in a company newsletter. "Walking around [the Consumer Electronic Show], it was obvious that much of the enthusiasm and momentum is on the Blu-Ray side."

"The support for HD DVD is minimal, in comparison. And Blu-ray has a technical advantage as well because it offers greater storage density," she said in a recent interview, noting that the Blu-Ray disc can scale up to 200 GB over time. "HD DVD can't match that scalability," said Downey.

All Just a Game

Sony has promised to provide Blu-Ray technology in its next-generation PlayStation 3 gaming console, which will give the format even more momentum, some analysts say.

By 2010, Screen Digest believes that just under one-third of all spending on video discs in the U.S., Japan, and Europe will be generated by sales of high definition formats.

[yahoonews]

Technorati Tags : HD-DVD, Blu-ray

AMD Release More Chips

WEE XBIT labs reckons that AMD has started "conquering low end" territories. There's a fash aboot it, here.

Jings! And there's more. According to this Taiwanese site, AMD has gorn and quietly released a X2 5200+ - L2 cache being 1MBX2.

The News of the Screws - Bit-tech - has gone all Gelsinger and has a palooza of power supply units, here. Wil Harris has recently visited with (sic) Intel in Dullsville, so no doubt he's brainwashed with the palooza term again. Only Gelsinger knows the meaning of palooza. And he's nae saying.

Hard OCP suggests that you can really really get a decent gaming card for under 100 nicker US, here.

Meanwhile at Overclockers, Ed the S suggests there's grounds for Cointreau pricing optimism.

AMD Zone notices that Mad Shrimps has decided to do a chipset cooler roundup!

[theinquirer]

 

 

Tongue'd Gameboy

Simmunity has created the world's first tongue-controlled Nintendo Game Boy AdvanceSP console and Game Cube controller for quadriplegic youth and adults.

The unit is designed for special people in school, residential and hospital settings, who can now play Game Boys with a tongue controller.

At left, you see a Tongue-Controlled Game Boy Advance SP and remote control receiver and a Charmed Labs XPort 2.0 cartridge programmed with a custom game program.

 

To make this work, we added a new jack for the receiver input. This receiver processes signals from the tongue-touch keypad and, in this case, relays them to a second micro-controller computer chip inside the Game Boy, added by Simmunity, to decode the reciever signals and activate the Game Boy Advance SP buttons.

The Nintendo Game Boy Advance SP operates normally with all Game Boy Advance compatible cartridges, though games which require multiple simultaneous button closures will require an assistant to help push extra buttons during play. Many games such as the popular Pokemon Pinball game and retro game collections with Ms. PacMan, Battle Zone and Galaxian are easily played on the Tongue Controlled Game Boy Advance SP without assistance. The Tongue Controlled Game Boy Advance SP can also control many Nintendo Game Cube Games through use of a Nintendo Game Boy Advance to Game Cube link cable.

Each Remote Controlled Game Boy Advance SP system is created by remanufacturing a standard Game Boy Advance SP console and adding a MicroChip PIC processor for signal decoding and button activation. Remanufactured consoles look unmodified and provide full battery life.

Simmunity Corporation is also developing specialized games and augmented communications software for people with various physical and cognitive communications challenges. We are dedicated to the thousands of young people whose lives we can touch and make brighter with learning, communication and entertainment products. We endeavor to raise self esteem and independence through accomplishment.

 

[simmunity]

 

Technorati Tags : Gameboy, Advanced

Toy Hydrogen Cars

The H-racer ($40), a new toy car from a Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies, is a fascinating look into the potential hydrogen economy—although a sad excuse for a toy. The H-racer is pretty much pointless without it’s Hydrogen Station accessory ($40), which extracts hydrogen from water using electrolysis. That process is powered either by an included solar panel or by AA batteries.

The folks from Horizon admit that they are a fuel cell company, not a toy manufacturer, and perhaps it might require the skills of a seasoned toy industry veteran to include something such as remote radio control. But was it too much of an intellectual challenge for a company of engineers who spend their days blueprinting fuel cell stacks to design wheels that steer?

Okay, so the thing only goes in one direction, the fun part is supposed to be the hands-on demo of the technology that will single-handedly solve the fuel crisis. Here’s how it works: First, you build the car (which involves around 10 minutes of hooking up internal tubes and screwing together the case). Then you use an included syringe to extract any residual gasses in the car’s hydrogen tank—really just a little balloon. Next you plug the car into the fueling station, fill the station’s pump with water, plug in the solar panel, and wait. Then, after around three minutes, you get sick of waiting, and you turn on the battery power to fill the tank at a less glacial pace.

Then you’re ready to go. Flip the on/off switch on the bottom of the racer and its little wheels turn as fast as they can—which is actually not that fast at all. Nor is it that far. In our tests, the racer seemed to travel around 25 feet before petering out. (Inexplicably, this seems to occur while the balloon is still full.)

Nevertheless, the H-racer does provide a powerful lesson about the feasibility of a hydrogen fuel economy. And that lesson is that, as demonstrated, it is a disappointing power delivery system. As you patiently wait ten minutes for the fueling station to extract enough energy from the solar panel to create enough hydrogen to eventually run the car, you can’t help wondering why you didn’t just strap the solar panel and a battery to the car and be done with it? Instead of a miracle fuel, the tank full of hydrogen is just acting as a complicated battery with plenty of built-in inefficiency and extraordinarily low capacity.

So what’s the lesson? Hydrogen is a nice, clean way to run an electric motor, but pure hydrogen doesn’t just make itself. These days, when battery-powered cars such as the Tesla can go 130 mph and get up to 250 miles on a charge, the happy hydrogen future seems more and more like a lot of pressurized gas.

 

[popularmechanics]

 

Technorati Tags : Fuel, Cell, Car

Road to High Def

HIGH-TECH projects often take longer to complete than anticipated; just ask Microsoft’s Windows team.

 

But it seems as if we’ve been hearing about high-definition video since the Eisenhower administration. The Federal Communications Commission’s mandatory cutoff of old-fashioned analog TV broadcasts, now scheduled for 2009, has been delayed, what, 500 times?

Part of the holdup is the extent and expense of the switch to the new, better-looking format. To achieve HDTV nirvana, you have to replace every element of your video setup: the TV set, cable box, DVD player, DVD movie collection — and even your camcorder.

Next month, Canon will release the world’s smallest and least expensive high-definition tape camcorder, a one-handable beauty called the HV10. Its list price is $1,300. As any gadget freak can tell you, however, that’s an inflated, fanciful figure provided for — well, for no good reason. The online price, once the camcorder is on store shelves, will be lower.

The HV10 is not the first high-def consumer camcorder by any means; Sony began blazing this path at the beginning of 2005. In fact, Sony’s third HD camcorder, not counting pro models, has been available for months: the HC3 ($1,500 list price; under $1,200 online), the previous price and size champ.

As Canon rolls out its HV10, Sony’s HC3 seems to be squarely in its cross hairs. Both camcorders produce video in the 1080i format, which you can edit in Apple’s iMovie or many Windows programs (Premiere, Vegas, PowerDirector and so on). Both have built-in, automatic lens caps but lack headphone and microphone jacks.

Both are HDV camcorders, which means that they record onto standard, easy-to-find, inexpensive MiniDV cassettes. The eyepiece viewfinder is immobile and nonextendable on both. And both cameras are so compact, the other parents at the baseball game will have absolutely no clue that you’re filming in high definition.

OF course, they’ll also have no idea that you paid more than $1,000 for your camcorder, compared with as little as $300 for a standard-def model — at least until they see the result on a high-definition TV.

That’s when they’ll see what all the fuss is about. The clarity, color fidelity and detail of good high-def video is absolutely astonishing, and its wide-screen shape makes even home movies look like Hollywood movies. With four times the resolution of a standard TV picture, high-def movies look like the view out a window.

This image-quality business, as it turns out, is the new Canon’s specialty. Talk about being blown away the first time you play back your recordings — let’s hope you have a sturdy couch.

Several advances are responsible for the brilliant picture quality. First, Canon has paid extra attention to two of the most important aspects of HD recording: focus and stability. Because the high-def picture is so sharp and so wide, moments of blurriness or hand-held jitters are far more noticeable and disturbing than in regular video.

So the front of the HV10 bears a special external sensor that, when you change your aim, handles the bulk of the refocusing extremely rapidly. A standard through-the-lens focusing system does the fine tuning after that. Together, these two mechanisms nearly eliminate the awkward moment of blurry focus-hunting that mars other camcorders’ output. (Take care to avoid covering the focus sensor with your fingers as they wrap around this vertically oriented, chunky camera.)

The HV10 also aims to iron out camera shake with a true optical stabilizer. A gyroscope inside the lens mechanism sends real-time feedback to the sensor itself, resulting, Canon says, in a more stable picture than you’d get from electronic stabilizers like the one in Sony’s HC3.

In practice, the Canon’s stabilizer works fantastically when you’re zoomed out; if you use two hands, the picture is indistinguishable from a tripod shot. As you zoom in, however, camera shake becomes more noticeable; at the 10X maximum, keeping the video rock-solid requires either a tripod or nerves of steel.

Now, depending on where the Canon’s street price winds up, Sony’s HC3 may be slightly more expensive. But it offers some goodies that the Canon lacks: a minutes-remaining readout for the battery; a “nightshot” mode for filming in total blackness, infrared-style; and an accessory shoe for video lights and microphones (proprietary Sony accessories only).

The Sony model also has an HDMI jack. HDMI is a single cable that carries high-definition video and audio — a common, extremely convenient connector on high-def equipment. Connecting the Canon to a high-def TV, on the other hand, requires plugging in five connections: left and right audio, and three component-video jacks.

[nytimes]

Technorati Tags : HDTV

Spill-resistant Keyboard

The eMark Super Mobile Keyboard is marketed as the world's thinnest keyboard and just so happens to be spill-resistant—no more worrying about a cup of joe (or, mayhap, other liquid-like substances) muddying up the keys. From Japanese company Kimura Metal, the keyboard measures only 1mm, or about 0.04-inches. The USB keyboard has a retractable cable and comes in both white and black. Since it's so thin, it's possible to wrap it much like a Fruit Roll-Up. It's due to hit Japan later this month for around $256.

 

[gizmodo]

 

Technorati Tags : Keyboard, Tech

Lossless Downloads On iTunes

A recent upgrade to the iTunes Producer software used by studios to encode tracks for iTMS distribution may be a good sign for the discriminating audiophile community, as Apple has included the necessary tools to create lossless AAC content that could presumably be uploaded to the online store. While the simple availability of this option certainly doesn't mean that higher-quality downloads are on the way -- for one thing, the so-called Apple Lossless Encoder still lacks the required FairPlay support -- Ars Technica points out that Cupertino and Hollywood could both potentially benefit from a less lossy option. Since tracks encoded in this format can be almost ten times as big as equivalent MP3s, widespread availability of lossless music may convince consumers to step up to higher capacity iPods, which would seem to be in Apple's best interest. As for the music studios, these high-fidelity tracks could presumably fetch more than the 99 cents that 128Kbps files go for, opening a door for the tiered pricing structures that content providers so desire. For now, though, these crystal-clear downloads are still merely speculation, so hardcore audio snobs enthusiasts will have to continue buying and ripping their own CDs for the foreseeable future.

 

[engadget]