Telstra Selling 32GB HTC One XL (4G) From June 5 
Aussie Teen's Picture Of Cash On Facebook Leads To Home Robbery 
Motorola Defy Mini Review 
The Downside Of Living In A Digital World 
Australia, NZ And South Africa To Share Square Kilometre Array 
Watch That Tiny $74 1.5GHz Android-Powered Thumb-Puter In Action Word is that Sony is going to be joining EMI in Apple’s iTunes Plus. That’s the extra-cost, higher-MP3-quality DRM-free option in iTunes. EMI’s currently the only major label in iTunes Plus, so the addition of Sony would be a major coup for Apple to say the least. This is just a rumour though, so watch this space. [9 to 5 Mac via TechDigest]
SanDisk’s grand plan to revolutionise the music industry: selling individual albums preloaded onto SD cards, made by them, to be played on SD card players, made by them. The concept is definitely attractive in some ways. The tracks are 320Kbps, DRM-free MP3 files, the SD cards are reusable and the screenless slotMusic players costs next to nothing. Major label albums are priced at a competitive $US15, and can be played without the need for transfer from a computer, though you can load other SD cards with up to 16GB of music and play them, too.
Like Yahoo and MSN before them, Walmart is turning off its DRM servers on Oct. 9, effectively putting any DRM’d songs you bought from them into a cold stasis they’ll never wake up from, since they’ll become totally unmovable unless you circumvent the DRM. Walmart went through this earlier with their video store, though it didn’t matter since no one bought anything from it. Walmart’s music store is DRM-free now, though I doubt that’s any consolation to people who actually paid for music that’s now nigh useless.
Amazon’s just officially announced that the Amazon MP3 Store will come pre-loaded on the HTC G1 Android phone. It’s a special optimised version of the store which lets T-Mobile G1 users “search, download, buy and play music from Amazon MP3.” That means six million DRM free songs from major and independent labels will be at the fingertips of G1 users, though you need Wi-Fi to download tracks (browsing and sampling can be done over the phone network) and albums cost less than $US10 with individual tracks going for around $US0.90. Press release below.
Sandisk’s slotMusic cards are not much more than tweaked 1GB microSD cards with a logo and a special USB-compatible sled: but the fact that they’ll carry albums from big names like BMI Music, Sony BMG, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group makes them interesting. They’ll also be DRM free too, which is a pleasant surprise. It’s an attempt to change the way some people buy MP3s—you’ll get a card you can slot into your mobile phone or PC with high-quality MP3s (up to 320kbps), artwork, videos and such, which you can also reuse as a 1GB memory card later, and that’s kinda handy.
Following on the heels of its main rival Nokia, Sony Ericsson’s allegedly also planning an unlimited music downloading service for its Walkman-branded mobile phones. According to the Financial Times, Sony Ericsson is in discussions with all major labels about a rival tunes subscription service.
This was unexpected. Today Telstra, through its BigPond Music service, announced that it will be selling DRM-free MP3 tracks from all four major labels, plus a heap of independents. Previously, they only sold WMA tracks that “Played 4 Sure” – or in other words, didn’t play at all.
The move to DRM-free MP3 means that you can listen to these tracks on pretty much any device, including your iPod. To the best of my knowledge, it also makes BigPond the second service in the world (behind Amazon in the US) to sell DRM-free music from all four majors.
The tracks are encoded at either 256Kbps or 320Kbps, which is as good as it gets for MP3 files from an online store.
This is a fantastic move from Telstra – DRM is one of the biggest drawbacks of buying music online. Considering that MP3 tracks are still only $1.69 in the MP3 format, the question has to be asked – why would you use iTunes (unless buying iTunes Plus tracks) when you can get a DRM-free version for the same price from BigPond?
Rhapsody, known for its subscription music service, just opened a DRM-free MP3 store. The MP3s are encoded in 256kpbs CBR, and run US$.99 per track and US$9.99 per album. Shoppers can preview 25 full-length tracks a month from the standard 5 million song catalog, which is extra sweet if you ask us. To kick things off, the first 100,000 sign-ups to the store until July 4th get one album for free, so give it a try and let us know how it stacks up against the big boys. AU: I haven’t checked yet, but I’m almost certain that this will be US only. Feel free to let me know if we can access it down under.
[Rhapsody]
Napster announced the transition to all DRM-free MP3s several months back, but now their 6 million song catalog is fully up and running. Now compatible with iPods/iPhones, Napster even claims that their inventory is “50% larger than any other MP3 store,” though we’re a little confused on the math since iTunes offers “more than 6 million [songs] ” themselves. Most of Napster’s catalog will be available at 256kbps bitrate, and they claim to be the first store to offer 100% MP3-formatted tracks. Anyone gonna give the service (another) go? UPDATE: Ahh, we get it. Largest “MP3 store,” not digital music store. Nice catch, commenters!
Trent Reznor is not only breaking the old distribution model, he’s even breaking the newest, like Radiohead’s pay-what-you-want: Nine Inch Nails’ latest album—The Slip—is 100% free, no payment required in any case, not even when you download the whooping 1.2GB version—which includes high definition WAVE 24/96 files (better-than-CD-quality 24bit 96kHz audio.) You can also choose from high-quality MP3s, FLAC lossless and M4A lossless. Note to record labels: drop dead. [NIN]
