Oh gawd, Dell releasing Zing-based DJ Ditty in September?
Ready for the DJ Ditty 2? You’d better be because the Wall Street Journal says that “several Dell officials” have confirmed in-house testing of a new sub-$100 digital music player that could go on sale as early as September. Dell also plans to launch a download service and software to “organize music and movies from various online sources” in order to properly seed the product ecosystem. The new player features a small navigation screen and basic button controls and will connect to online music services over WiFi. Unfortunately, there’s no mention of DRM, only that downloaded music can be shared between PCs and cellphones. So… if you’re wondering how Dell’s acquisition of Zing might play into this then go get yourself a cookie, Dell’s device is based on Zing’s software (that’s a pre-Dell era Zing prototype pictured). In fact, Zing will come pre-installed on a series of Dell notebook computers and “other devices” (like a Dell smartphone, maybe?) and will likely connect to “Zingspot” if Dell puts its trademark to use.
Funny, this all sounds very 2006 to us as we struggle to see how Dell’s player / service will compete in a market already shaking itself out — right Sony, Yahoo, and Microsoft? In fact, the whole WSJ piece seems like an attempt for Dell to gauge public reaction without suffering the indignity of a failed product announcement. Michael Tatelman, Dell’s VP of Consumer Sales, says he’ll decide “in a few weeks” how to proceed with the player and may decide not to sell it at all. So go ahead folks, now’s your chance to tell Dell how you feel with all the anonymous key slapping you can muster in the comments.
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So, it’s done: Sirius has completed its acquisition of XM, forming Sirius XM Radio with more than 18.5 million subscribers, making it the second-largest radio business in the US. The new company, headquartered in New York, expects to save about $400 million in 2009 while earning $300 million. If you’re a drooling investor, don’t go charging up to the champagne room just yet — analysts are pointing out that neither company has ever posted a profit, and losses are in the billions. Anyway, can we move on to all the new, shiny Sirius XM receivers now, please?
Hey, both of you Yahoo! Music Store customers, listen up. Just hours after Yahoo! affirmed that it would be powering down its DRM servers, along comes a spokesperson to alleviate any worries that you two will get screwed in all of this. According to Carrie Davis, customers “will be compensated for whatever they paid for the music,” and she continued on to state that Yahoo “had not yet decided what exactly it would do, but it would take care of its customers.” Some of the possible options include getting cash back for the money spent on tracks or receiving MP3 versions of the jams sans DRM (we’d take the former, thanks). Depressingly, there doesn’t seem to be a definitive time table laid out just yet for the restitution process.
If you ever tried your hand at transcribing audio to text you’re probably familiar with rewinding and playing back passages over and over again. What if you could slow down that audio file without altering the pitch to make it easier for you? Well if you’re a Mac users, you’re in luck as JS8 Media has developed a handy utility able to alter the speed of audio files without effecting it’s pitch.
It can takes a lifetime of schooling and practicing to learn how to write music. But why do you have to write music the traditional way? Is there really a need to learn the theory behind music? Maybe it’s time to start drawing music.