Category: Technology

iTunes Plus

Apple today launched iTunes Plus — DRM-free music tracks featuring high quality 256 kbps AAC encoding for audio quality virtually indistinguishable from the original recordings — for just $1.29 per song. iTunes Plus is launching with EMI’s digital catalog of outstanding recordings, including singles and albums from Coldplay, The Rolling Stones, Norah Jones, Frank Sinatra, Joss Stone,
Pink Floyd, John Coltrane and more than a dozen of Paul McCartney’s classic albums available on iTunes for the first time.

iTunes will continue to offer its entire catalog, currently over five million songs, in the same versions as today — 128 kbps AAC encoding with DRM — at the same price of 99 cents per song, alongside the higher quality iTunes Plus versions when available. In addition, iTunes customers can now easily upgrade their library of previously purchased EMI content to iTunes Plus tracks for just 30 cents a song and $3.00 for most albums.

“Our customers are very excited about the freedom and amazing sound quality of iTunes Plus,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We expect more than half of the songs on iTunes will be offered in iTunes Plus versions by the end of this year.”

“This is a tremendous milestone for digital music,” said Eric Nicoli, CEO of EMI Group. “Consumers are going to love listening to higher quality iTunes Plus tracks from their favorite EMI artists with no usage restrictions.”

With the release of iTunes Plus, customers can now download tracks from their favorite EMI artists without limitations on the type of music player or number of computers that purchased songs can be played on. iTunes is also offering customers a simple, one-click option to easily upgrade their library of previously purchased EMI content to the iTunes Plus versions. EMI music videos are now also available in iTunes Plus versions with no change in price. iTunes Plus songs purchased from the iTunes Store will play on all iPods, Mac or Windows computers, widescreen TVs with Apple TV and soon iPhones, as well as many other digital music players.

iTunes U

Apple today announced the launch of iTunes U, a dedicated area within the iTunes Store (www.itunes.com) featuring free content such as course lectures, language lessons, lab demonstrations, sports highlights and campus tours provided by top US colleges and universities including Stanford University, UC Berkeley, Duke University and MIT.

“iTunes U makes it easy for anyone to access amazing educational material from many of the country’s most respected colleges and universities,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of iTunes. “Education is a lifelong pursuit and we’re pleased to give everyone the ability to download lectures, speeches and other academic content for free.”

“From its earliest days, Stanford has sought to serve the public by sharing the knowledge generated by our faculty and students,” said Stanford Provost John Etchemendy. “Our partnership with Apple and iTunes U provides a creative and innovative way to engage millions of people with our teaching, learning and research and share the experience of intellectual exploration and discovery that defines our university.”

Created in collaboration with colleges and universities, iTunes U makes it
easier than ever to extend learning, explore interests, learn more about a school and stay connected with an alma mater. Content from iTunes can be loaded onto an iPod with just one click and experienced on-the-go, anytime, making learning from a lecture just as simple as enjoying music.

The iTunes Store features the world’s largest catalog, adding new education content to over five million songs, 350 television shows and over 500 movies. The iTunes Store has sold over 2.5 billion songs, 50 million TV shows and over two million movies, making it the world’s most popular online music, TV and movie store.

Sanctuary webisodes

Sanctuary

Webisodes have been around for a good amount of years, but usually they were fan films and overall low budget. Sanctuary is the first epic sci-fi webisode series that I can say I want to watch!Judge for yourself by watching the first full episode on The Pipeline’s Indie Film show. After that you can watch the preview for the second episode. As of this post, there have already been four episodes released. Best of all each episode has high definition versions available for purchasing at only $2.49! Regular standard definition versions cost $1.99 per episode.

Check out the series official website at www.SantuaryForAll.com.

LOST on iPod Games

If this doesn’t get you excited, I don’t know what will…

Today Apple is extending the range to 14 games for iPod available on the iTunes Store adding LOST from Gameloft to its line up.

Join your favourite castaways in their quest to seek truth and survive in the official iPod game of the hit television series, LOST.

Help Jack search for dynamite, tend to the wounded, and avoid the black smoke. Relive the crash scene, open the hatch and ultimately try your best to escape from the Others. Immerse yourself into their mysterious world with authentic settings and a genuine storyline created by writers behind the hit show.

The official iPod game providing total immersion into the world of LOST.

• Storyline created by the writers behind the series
• Play Jack and interact with other main characters of the series: Kate,Locke, Sayid, etc.
• Production quality that measures up with the LOST phenomenon: faithfully reproduced settings, intuitive and extremely varied gameplay
• Explore the island’s main sites: The beach, the jungle, inside the Hatch, the Black Rock, etc.
• Relive the most eventful moments from the series: The crash scene, running from the black smoke, meeting the Others, etc.
• Take on a multitude of challenges: Exploration, hunting, helping the wounded, searching for dynamite, etc.

Microsoft Takes On Everyone and Anyone With Silverlight

Silverlight

Wow is all that I can say after watching the video explaining how Silverlight works. Basically it’s a video editing piece of software for the web, but it has redesigned the way that video editing used to work.

If you want to learn more about Silverlight check it the examples on its website. Then check out the video demo. Ultimately download the beta version that was just released today!

Sadly the program doesn’t work on Windows 2000 so I have to use XP to try out the beta. 🙁

Ok I know I should stop using Windows 2000. For all you Mac fans the software is out of the box compatible with OSX.