media

Wal-Mart's online store has undergone a major redesign that makes its massive catalogue of songs entirely DRM-free. Digital rights management (DRM) is a term used to identify restrictions placed on digital media to prevent piracy. Wal-Mart's online ... store had previously made use of the Windows Media DRM, limiting the playback of songs to devices sanctioned by Microsoft. However, the growing popularity of mobile media devices such as the iPod, which cannot play songs limited to the Windows Media DRM, has forced the retailer to carry out a complete switch-over. Wal-Mart had announced its ... (view more)

Microsoft has revamped their slow-selling Zune digital media players and created a brand new social networking service dedicated to the device. The upgrades are intended to rival the popularity of the Apple iPod, while hopefully sparking a rock n' ... chat revolution that brings the Zune to the forefront of portable media innovations. In the last year alone, Microsoft has only sold around 1.2 million Zune devices. These figures do not even begin to rival the iPod, which continually draws higher annual sales. (Source: nytimes.com ) Microsoft has breathed new life into the hardware and software ... (view more)

When consumers think of portable media devices made by a company whose name starts with 'A', "Archos" might not come to mind. Despite manufacturing some of the first MP3 players available to the public, their products continue to be overshadowed by ... the increasingly popular iPod. Archos is only now realizing that to stay afloat of the market they helped to pioneer, they must come up with products that can match any device produced by Apple. Archos may have found the answer to their prayers in the 605 WiFi media player. The Archos 605 WiFi is a medium capacity touch screen multimedia player ... (view more)

After countless threats of legal action and allegations of a carefree approach to copyrighted material, two of the most powerful media companies are embarking on a joint venture that will showcase their own material on some of the Internet's biggest ... websites. The move puts the two media giants in direct competition with YouTube and the other online video-sharing sites that hold no copyright for the material they provide. The News Corporation and NBC Universal will distribute their latest content, like television episodes and movies, on AOL, Yahoo, MSN and MySpace. It is estimated that 96 ... (view more)

Is Vista worth it? With all the hoopla, hype, and criticism floating around the 'net since Vista's release, it's no wonder users are confused as to whether the leap to Microsoft's new operating system is a good investment. In a recent article by ... Laptop Magazine, author Jeffrey Wilson wrote that "it's no secret that Microsoft's new operating system offers plenty of additional functionality over XP and gives users a much better experience overall." It's also no secret that Vista has taken some serious heat in recent weeks for a number of issues, the most frequently reported surrounding ... (view more)

Google Inc. has been dealt a heavy blow in the form of a US $1 billion copyright lawsuit issued by major media corporation, Viacom Inc. The lawsuit specifically targets the unauthorized content found on YouTube.com. The website was purchased by ... Google last November for $1.76 billion. Viacom, whose subsidiaries include MTV, VH1 and Comedy Central, continuously lashed out against the popular video-sharing site for its lack of enforcement when dealing with copyright issues. The lawsuit signals an escalation in long-standing tensions between Viacom and Google and also marks the biggest ... (view more)

Google is at it again! The company is seemingly on a quest to buy the entire Internet. And that trend continued with its recent purchase of the video sharing website YouTube.com for $1.65 billion in stock. When a corporate buyout takes place, the ... new owners generally attempt to change or compromise their shiny new acquisition in some way. However, that won't be the case with YouTube, according to Google's press release: "YouTube will operate independently to preserve its successful brand and passionate community." Representatives of both Google and YouTube have already made comments about the ... (view more)

Windows Media Encoder Studio Edition Windows Media Encoder Studio Edition Beta 1 is an exciting new addition to the Windows Media tools family. It is a powerful tool for video professionals, optimized for the creation of high-quality offline ... encoding using Microsoft's implementation of the VC-1 video standard (WMV9). Windows Media Encoder Studio Edition Beta 1 provides the key features necessary to create next-generation video content and capitalize on the growing importance of scenarios around optical media and video-on-demand. With the final standardization of VC-1, "Studio Edition, ... (view more)

On Monday, MySpace.com's parent company, Fox Interactive Media (owned by News Corp) announced a newly launched deal with Google that will give the search engine exclusive rights to online search results and sponsored ads on the MySpace web ... community. The deal also gives Google the same access to Fox Interactive Media's other online enterprises such as RottenTomatoes.com and Scout.com. (Source: news.com ) Agreement Stipulations The agreement stipulates that in exchange for being Fox Interactive's exclusive search engine and ad provider, Google will pay $900 million U.S. from its AdSense ... (view more)

Adobe Systems, Inc. has recently released Flashplayer 9: its newest media system. Promising to provide users with the most vivid content on the web, video without annoying downloads, and greater interaction with websites, Flashplayer 9 is available ... free from Adobe's website (Source: adobe.com ) Flashplayer 9: What's New This most recent version of Flashplayer supports Actionscript 3 and Flex 2 as well as incorporating two Virtual Machines (VM). The purpose of the multiple VMs is simple: the first plays older Flashplayer media, while the second concentrates on exclusive new content for ... (view more)