Today there were a lot of big tech stories that, on the surface, seem unrelated: Verizon is rolling out a Blackberry Storm OS update; S&P Cuts Motorola’s rating to junk; AT&T hopes to have their own uber-phone OS; Dell is charging a $150 premium for Windows XP; The Kindle may be getting pwned by the […]

Microsoft today announced a new “landmark agreement” (Microsoft’s words) with major and independent music labels to “bring significant new value to the subscription music model.” The Zune Pass subscription service currently gives consumers on-demand access to millions of tracks for $14.99 per month. Starting today subscribers will also get to select 10 tracks per month to […]

Eugene zMastaa Agyeman’s ZuneStats is a WordPress plugin that lets you get social, Microsoft Zune style.  ZuneStats displays your Zune Stats in a sidebar widget, including Recently Played Tracks, Most Played Artists Favourite Tracks

According to Microsoft Zune guru Rob Greenlee, there’s been “a huge jump in podcast interest in the Zune Podcast Marketplace Software.” “This is an annual rite of passage, that summer is the time when podcast usage dips and then it comes stampeding back in the Fall and Winter,” explains Greenlee. “This year is no exception […]

The New York Times has a great look at the state of the Zune today, that suggests that the Microsoft’s portable media player has found a niche: Microsoft hasn’t made much effort to match the iPod’s universe of functions. The Zune store still lacks movies, downloadable programs, gift certificates, monthly allowances or any way to rate […]

Microsoft today released a free software update that will bring new features to all Zune portable media players. The new software will allow Zune users to: wirelessly stream and download music from the Zune Marketplace store on the go; tag and purchase songs directly from the built-in FM radio; and tap into new, personalized music recommendations […]

Apple’s iTunes 8 introduced a new feature, Genius, designed to help you find new music. I was unimpressed with Genius – it’s not much more than a recommendation engine, designed to get you to buy more music. In other words, it’s a lot like the recommendation system Amazon has been offering online for a decade.  Wired […]

Microsoft today announced Zune updates, timed to upstage iPod/iTunes announcements anticipated from Apple on Tuesday.  Unfortunately for everybody who owns a portable media player, Microsoft’s announcements are woefully misguided and mistimed.  You have to give Microsoft credit for releasing another Zune update that brings new features to their existing players. Apple typically saves significant new features […]

Ashley Payne is a design student at College for Creative Studies in Detroit, Michigan. The Zune Bug is her design concept for a Zune-branded nightlight that reacts to your room’s ambient light level.  It’s also designed to be a wireless remote speaker for your Zune and responds to the frequency and volume of your music with variations […]

This demo video from Microsoft demonstrates a new technology, Microsoft Unwrap Mosaics, that can make it easy to do video special effects editing: The representation has some of the power of a full reconstruction of 3D surface models from video, but is designed to be easy to recover from a priori unseen and uncalibrated footage. […]