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Release Date: August 05, 2009
Genre: Games
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iTunes New Music Releases

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

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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
  • Machine Gun Etiquette

    • 8 out of 10
    • The Damned
    • Punk rock is mostly associated with three chords and a bad attitude, but the Damned were one of the few bands of the era bent on bringing musicianship and a good sense of humor to the scene. And while
  • Mystics Anonymous

    • 8 out of 10
    • Mystics Anonymous
    • Mystics Anonymous is the brainchild project of Jeff Steblea, a fantastic songwriter and good friend of mine, as well. In fact, I even played the drums on all but one of the tracks on this album. Jef
  • 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
  • Guero

    • 10 out of 10
    • Beck
    • Beck is the modern master of the groove, and Guero is merely the latest example of this. From the opening power chords of "E-Pro," to the Pac-Man cuteness of "Girl," to the dirge-like lullab

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News

iSuppli Says New 30GB iPod Costs $151 to Manufacture

Gross profit margins are in the neighborhood of 50% for the new iPod according to research firm iSuppli, which took apart a 30GB video iPod and estimated that it costs US$151 to manufacture. The player sells for $299. Arik Hesseldahl has all the details in his latest BusinessWeek column.

As Ars Technica noted when it took apart the 30GB iPod, Broadcom manufactured the player's video chip, with longtime Apple suppliers PortalPlayer and Wolfson providing the audio processors. iSuppli analyst Chris Cotty said told Mr. Hesseldahl: "Over time, you'll see more chips that do everything. But now it's probably ore cost effective for Apple to do it with separate chips."

Mr. Cotty also noted that Apple's 50% gross profit margin for the new iPod "is in line with what we have seen with other iPod products from Apple."

While Apple uses three different suppliers for iPod nano displays, Mr. Cotty pointed out that Apple is using only one, a Toshiba-Matsushit joint venture, for the new iPod's display. "We know that it is supply-constrained," he said.

Mr. Hesseldahl concluded: "If this all reads like a detective story, it's no accident. Apple rarely discloses the identity of its suppliers, and in the case of displays, the suppliers themselves do their best to obscure their identities."

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