Hopefully it will end up better than the current DVD-/+R[W] format issues that we are having these days, but I wouldn't count on it. ZDNet is reporting that NEC and Toshiba are working together on a new blue laser DVD format to rival the work done by a …

Microsoft has announced that they will be providing a paid radio service (without commercials) for $29.95/year. An article on CNET describes the upcoming service and its origins in MongoMusic (a company that Microsoft acquired in 2000). The reported unique feature is the ability to search for music based …

A Mighty Wind is another enjoyable "mockumentary" from Director/Writer/Producer Christopher Guest (who has been a writer on This is Spinal Tap, Best in Show, and Waiting for Guffman, each a fine farce in its own right). As with the previous films, the real genius of this one is …

An interesting article this morning on MacCentral details the rather complex set up for using an iPod as the backup for an FM radio station that has intermittent problems with its satellite feed. The basics are that they installed the 5GB iPod as an on-site backup at the transmitter so …

Finally! Coming to home theaters on November 4th, the Indiana Jones trilogy. Lots of bonus footage, nice transfers, a big marketing campaign, and a hefty list price await.

Those with Macs that don't have SuperDrives may be interested in the review from MacWorld of a variety of external (FireWire) DVD recorders. All drives are between $350 and $399, but there are some significant differences, especially to the Macintosh user, who will need to find appropriate DVD content creation …

Continuing a successful launch, Apple announced that their new Music Store has shipped over 1 million songs. They have also sold about 20,000 iPods at Apple Stores and taken 110,000 orders online. The press release on Apple's site provides additional info, including the following interesting stats: over half …

If you are using an Apple iPod and have taken the time to update your entire library with album covers, don't be surprised if you get a long download the next time you plug in your iPod. The pictures are stored in each individual song, and therefore each song has …

Friday saw a larger-than-normal group headed out to see the first major action film of 2003, X2. In the end, I ended up enjoying the film on a number of levels and I'm certain the rest of the crew did as well. However, if you are looking for the one …

I had the sincere pleasure of attending my first (but definitely not my last) John McCutcheon concert last night at Wolf Trap's Barns of Wolf Trap venue. It turns out that it was also my first time at the Barns, which didn't disappoint either. Holding about 345 people, it …

According to an article on MacCentral, a service called File-Cash is going to debut on June 1 that will use P-2-P technology to sell legitimate copies of music from 100 indy record companies to end users. The system supposedly makes use of encrypted Digital Rights Management technology to ensure appropriate …

NOTE: this information is out of date and is left here for historical purposes There is a nice hint1 discussion on MacOS X Hints that describes the formats and shortcuts for building URLs that link either to songs served from people's shared music or for searches/albums in Apple's …

OK, given that there are a wide range of opinions about the various music services, I decided to sign up for them and find out what they all look like and are about. My preliminary results are in the table on this site. Feel free to add your comments by …

An article in Mac Daily News cites a Fortune article in quoting an AOL/Warner executive as saying that they are courting Apple to provide the new iTunes service on the AOL service. Seems like a lot of indirection to get to the point, but it might be interesting as …

I couldn't resist this BusinessWeek article's title. This is part of BusinessWeek's "Byte of the Apple" column, that appears every couple of weeks. The author believes this may mark the beginning of the end for the big labels. I'm not so certain, but I do think it has the …

There is a great article (followed by some nice follow-ups) on MacRumors detailing the particulars about Apple's DRM for the Music Store feature in iTunes. The summary is that you are allowed to (as Jobs said in his speech on Monday): Play a purchased song on up to 3 …

No announcements yet, but a quote from Mr. Jobs in Time from an interview with Apple's CEO has the following exchange: TIME: What about independent labels? Will they follow suit? Jobs: Yes. They've already been calling us like crazy. We've had to put most of them off until after …

Since Apple's new iTunes 4 software supports display of album covers, we all need to load up our album covers into our play lists. A discussion thread on MacSlash discusses this very issue.

In celebration of the release of The Matrix:Reloaded on May 15th, we will be presenting a special edition MovieFest on Saturday, May 10th. In keeping with the trapped in the machine motif, TRON will be shown first, followed by a break and The Matrix will be shown after that …

If you are interested in CNet's take on the new Apple music service, you can check out the analysis article. I've read it and I agree that the visible changes may be evolutionary, but the packaging, ease-of-use, and DRM changes are rather large. I was amused to see some …