The Financial Aid Podcast’s Christopher Penn has released a free .php script, the Podcaster iPhone Kit, that can be used to generate an iPhone-friendly page for your podcast. Here’s how Penn describes the script: This simple little web page parses your podcast’s XML feed and slaps it into a nice page designed to render well […]

Microsoft’s Zune has¬†failed to become an iPod-killer, but it may be a Zen-killer. Creative Technology, which entered the digital music player market in 1999, is feeling the heat of increased competition between Apple and Microsoft for the protable media player market. The company has¬†posted a wider fourth-quarter loss, and its¬†shares fell to an 11-year low. […]

Dell has¬†announced that it has entered into an agreement to buy privately-held ZING Systems, a company that focuses on always-connected audio and entertainment devices. Dell plans to use ZING and its capabilities to continue improving the entertainment experiences it provides its customers. ZING introduced itself in June of 2006, stating its plans to build “an […]

Microsoft has won a reversal of a $1.5 billion jury verdict against it for infringing on a patent for MP3 technology. Judge Rudi Brewster of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California threw out the damages, finding that a jury improperly ruled that Microsoft infringed on one of two pMP3 patents. One […]

A survey (pdf)¬†of music fans in the UK suggests that pricing at Apple’s iTunes music store may be keeping people from buying more legal music downloads, and could be driving people to file-sharing sites. Equally surprising, the survey suggests that most music fans don’t know or care about DRM (Digital Rights Management software). iTunes Pricing […]

Antivirus researchers¬†have identified a new Windows virus, W32/Deletemp3.worm, searches your hard drive and deletes all your MP3s. The virus spreads by copying itself onto any drives on your PC, including removable media and flash drives. If you move the drive to a new computer, it gets infected, too. The virus was discovered July 30th, and […]

Billboard today announced an update to its Hot 100 list,¬†a ranking of the top 100 songs in the US,¬†adding weekly streamed and on-demand music data from AOL Music and Yahoo! Music. The Billboard Hot 100¬†ranks songs by aggregating sales and radio data. Digital delivery began playing an important role in the chart’s composition in February […]

Puretracks.com today becomes the first Canadian digital music store to sell EMI’s digital music catalogue in an unrestricted¬†MP3 file format, without digital rights management (DRM). Beginning immediately in the Canadian market, you can purchase tracks from the likes of The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd and Canada’s Nickelback as MP3s.”EMI tracks purchased at Puretracks will play […]

Information Week’s Alexander Wolfe today offered his DRM Scorecard, summarizing it Hackers Batting 1000, Industry Zero. “Every single significant attempt at consumer-music DRM has been cracked,” writes Wolfe. He supports this by noting that CSS (older DVD encryption), Fairplay (Apple’s encryption technology), AACS (new DVD encryption technology) and Windows Media DRM have all been cracked. […]

YouTube has announced a new music video competition, YouTube OntheRise Rap Edition. The video contest hopes to find the best upcoming rap and hip-hop artists in the US. Interested artists can submit original videos from Friday, August 10 through Friday, August 17. 50 Cent, Common and Polow da Don will help judge the contest and […]