Get Better Gear!

Premier Sponsors

TechRestore

Other World Computing

Top 5 Free Apps

Release Date: August 05, 2009
Genre: Games
Release Date: May 22, 2009
Genre: Games
Release Date: August 29, 2009
Genre: Games
Release Date: March 27, 2009
Release Date: August 07, 2009

iTunes New Music Releases

Release Date: September 29, 2009
Genre: Rock
Release Date: September 20, 2009
Release Date: September 15, 2009
Release Date: August 25, 2009
Genre: Rock
Release Date: August 25, 2009

Top 5 Paid Apps

Release Date: April 22, 2009
StickWars $0.99
Release Date: March 31, 2009
Genre: Games
Bloons $0.99
Release Date: April 05, 2009
Genre: Games

Discover New Music

  • Pretty Hate Machine

    • 8 out of 10
    • Nine Inch Nails
    • For years I wanted to make music that sounded like something between Love and Rockets and Ministry. In 1989, Trent Reznor beat me to it with this genre-defining album, and it smacked me upside the hea
  • Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

    • 8 out of 10
    • Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
    • When I first got hooked to Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, the only place I could get their debut album, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, was through the band's Web site. I listened to the two tracks a

  • Trouble

    • 8 out of 10
    • Ray LaMontagne
    • At first, Ray LaMontagne might strike you as just another breathy-voiced knockoff of folk/rock guitarists like John Mayer and Jack Johnson. But he's actually got a better voice than either, he tell

  • Zooropa

    • 10 out of 10
    • U2
    • This record is perhaps U2's finest hour, yet it has been forgotten as a strange by-product of the ZooTV tour's overload, and is generally regarded by most fans as a poor effort. It is this sentiment t
  • Aretha Sings the Blues

    • 6 out of 10
    • Aretha Franklin
    • While she didn't always have the best taste in song selection, Aretha Franklin is a must-study for anyone with interest in the human voice. She has the kind of powerful, recklessly passionate deliv

Reader Specials

Visit Deals On The Web for the best deals on all consumer electronics, iPods, and more!

News

Microsoft Confirms Music Player Plans

In an exclusive interview with Billboard Magazine, which will publish the news in its July 29 edition, Microsoft's Chris Stephenson confirmed that the company plans to launch a portable music player, along with an iTunes-like service, under the name Zune.

Mr. Stephenson, who is Microsoft's new general manager of marketing for the MSN Entertainment Business, told Billboard that Zune "is the company's strongest effort yet to rein in Apple Computer's iTunes/iPod juggernaut, currently responsible for about 70% of the digital music market and 75% of the portable digital music player market," according to the Wall Street Journal (subscription required).

As previously rumored, Zune will be a self-contained system similar to iPod+iTunes, meaning that Microsoft will move away from the Windows Media ecosystem that licensed the technology to a variety of hardware makers and online music stores, only to see consumer confusion result.

The Wall Street Journal noted: "The ecosystem strategy worked brilliantly in PCs. But in music, instead of turning Microsoft's technology into the industry standard, the strategy has confused consumers with scores of different devices and services under different brand names that haven't always worked well together."

Post Your Comments

  Remember Me  Forgot your password?

Not a member? Register now. You can post comments without logging in, but they'll show up as a "guest" post.

Commenting is not available in this section entry.