It looks like iPod Monday at Des Moines, Iowa’s The Lift bar may be coming to an end. Apple wants The Lift to stop using the name “iPod Monday” to describe the bar’s weekly event in which patrons get together and share their musical tastes via their iPods. “Please choose a name for your product […]

While Steve Jobs may have a vision for the future of digital music, Warner Music isn’t buying it. The company said on Thursday it will keep anti-piracy copy protection for digital songs sold on services such as Apple Inc.’s iTunes Music Store. The company’s comments come two days after Apple Inc.’s chief executive Steve Jobs […]

True science: Researchers have discovered that the music on your iPod can reveal whether you’re intelligent, creative or outgoing. Psychologists Jason Rentfrow of the University of Cambridge in England and Sam Gosling at the University of Texas at Austin, have found tha strangers can accurately assess another person’s level of creativity, open-mindedness and extroversion after […]

CrunchGear is reporting that Microsoft is planning to release an an iPod-phone killer, the Zune phone: It will be a smartphone that works homogeneously with the Zune marketplace. It will most likely not, however, run Windows Mobile. Rather it‚Äôll make use of an interface similar to the current Zune, an interface that I consider among […]

Microsoft has announced that Bryan Lee, the executive responsible for the launch of the company’s controversial Zune media player, will be leaving the company. The launch of Microsoft’s portable media player is widely viewed as a fiasco, with more polite reviews saying the Zune is a dismal failure, and others just saying the Zune zucks. […]

Apple today announced that the iPod shuffle is now available in five colors: blue, pink, green, orange and the original silver. ‚ÄúiPod shuffle is the world‚Äôs most wearable digital music player,‚Äù said Greg Joswiak, Apple‚Äôs vice president of Worldwide iPod Product Marketing. ‚ÄúMusic fans can now choose iPod shuffle in one of five brilliant colors, […]

Starbucks and Apple today announced the availability of the Starbucks Hear Music catalog on the iTunes Store. Hear Music offerings will be available in a new Starbucks Entertainment area within the iTunes Store. Hear Music produces a wide range of albums showcasing new and classic artists including the vArtist Choice series, Opus Collections, Debut Series […]

The LA Opera has committed to producing an additional fourteen episodes of its Behind the Curtain at the LA Opera podcast series, based on enthusiasm for the initial episodes. Listeners to the first 4 episodes, which featured an inside look at LA Opera’s Manon, outnumbered actual seats at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion by more than […]

Apple’s use of digital rights management (DRM) to control the use of downloads from iTunes is illegal, the Norway’s Consumer Ombudsman has ruled. The blow follows the news that consumer groups in Germany and France are joining Norway’s action against Apple. “It doesn’t get any clearer than this. Fairplay is an illegal lock-in technology whose […]

Real Networks is pushing for abandoning DRM’s music formats, which some are interpreting as a sign that record labels are contemplating removing restrictions from digital downloads. ‚ÄúThere is a groundswell, and I say that on the basis of private conversations,‚Äù said Rob Glaser, chief executive of RealNetworks, which sells digital music protected against piracy through […]