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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

  • Odyssey Number Five

    • 10 out of 10
    • Powderfinger
    • Guitar-driven rock out of Australia, Powderfinger has not seen much exposure in the States, but should get a nod for their toe-tapping songs. Building off their previous release, "Internationalist" (
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Once More, with Feeling

    • 10 out of 10
    • Various Artists
    • Most musical episodes of TV shows frankly stink. They are usually little more than ill-conceived vehicles intended to let the stars show off what musical talent they have. Once More, With Feeling,

  • Stadium Arcadium

    • 8 out of 10
    • Red Hot Chili Peppers
    • What? Only four stars, you stingy bastard? I'm asking myself the same question, so let me explain myself to myself... If I compare the new

  • The Last 5 Years (2002 Off-Broadway Cast)

    • 10 out of 10
    • Jason Robert Brown
    • The soundtrack to this moving off-broadway musical is heart moving. The lyrics follow a couple in a relationship for five years, one point of view going forward in time, and the other tracing time fr
  • 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

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News

USA Today: Closed Music Systems Bad for Users

Closed music systems -- music and video downloads that can be played only on one brand of digital media device -- "leave buyers out in the cold," according to a USA Today article. While iPod owners and iTunes customers are able to easily and seamlessly listen to their digital downloads, customers of other online services and hardware maker face "chaos" and "confusion," according to the article.

The article doesn't offer much to substantiate the claim made in the title, that closed systems leave buyers out in the cold," but it does offer the example one 20 year old programmer who rejects the iPod and its wicked, closed ways. "With Apple, you have to play by their rules, and use their hardware and software, and I'm not a fan," said Josh Tichauer of Los Angeles.

Mr. Tichauer is instead looking forward to buying a Zune from Microsoft, a digital media device that will only play digital media downloaded from Microsoft's Zune Marketplace (in addition to media obtained offline) in Microsoft's closed, proprietary Windows Media format. The irony of Mr. Tichauer's position was not noted by the eagle-eyed reporter or editors of USA Today.

What the article does tackle fairly well is in contrasting a variety of online music services and digital media devices, though most of the assertions made in those contrasts are backed up by executives from those same services.

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