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September 23, 2003 |
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Readers were a bit shaken up this week by some topsy-turvy news. Once the bane of the music industry, Napster is about to launch in its new incarnation, which could make it the industry's darling. Meanwhile, Kazaa's founders are making new enemies--telephone companies--as their P2P voice-over-IP service grows. |
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Napster
The cat is finally out of the bag: Napster 2.0 is coming out in time for the holidays, and it has big plans. First, the service will offer 500,000 songs at launch, which is roughly double what its competitors, Apple iTunes and BuyMusic, launched with. Second and more importantly, Napster will partner with Samsung on a cobranded music player that will carry the Napster logo and a sticker labeled "Napster compatible." What this means for the PC-using digital music fan is that you're finally going to get a Windows alternative to the Apple iTunes/iPod combo. We realize that some of you iPod users will hold out for the iTunes Music Store for PCs, which is expected later this year (just in time for a holiday showdown, perhaps), but the rest of us are intrigued. According to our MP3 Insider, Senior Editor Eliot Van Buskirk, "the new player will not be officially unveiled until mid-October, but we suspect that it will closely resemble the Yepp YP-900," a 10GB hard drive player. And with that compatible sticker, we non-Mac users can likely expect more players to join the Napster fray down the line. |
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Treo 600
The Treo lovers among CNET readers are an anxious bunch, searching for and asking us about the upcoming and obviously much-anticipated Treo 600. Luckily for you, we've finally gotten more details about (as well as our hands on) this new PDA/phone combo device. Sprint will carry the updated Treo first, putting it on sale in early October for between $499 and $599, depending on carrier subsidies; a GSM version will follow from T-Mobile and Cingular stores. What's the advance word? We're not so impressed with the new QWERTY keyboard, which saves space by bunching the keys closer together. But the handheld specs have gotten our attention: Palm OS 5.21, a 144MHz ARM processor, a built-in camera, and an SDIO expansion slot for adding memory or a Bluetooth adapter. Plus, it sports all of the latest phone goodies: picture caller ID, a speakerphone, and world roaming. You can expect a full review of this more compact Treo within two weeks, so hang on for a little while longer and try not to drool over our new product shots. |
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Skype
I'm ready to dub last week P2P bizarre week. First, Napster revealed its newest plans to become a legitimate pay-to-play online music service. Now, the folks that brought you the massively popular file-sharing service Kazaa are getting into the voice-over-IP Net phone biz with Skype. Kazaa cofounders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom have launched what they claim is the first Internet phone service to use peer-to-peer software. In just its first week, 60,000 people downloaded the free Skype software. Similar services such as Vonage took months to get that much interest. The controversial pair say their Skype will "have a similar disruptive impact" to Kazaa's, but for traditional telephone companies instead of record companies. The question now is how long it will take for telecom companies--especially those that provide high-speed Net access as well as telephone service--to take the action against P2P VoIP as the entertainment industry did against file sharing. |
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PowerBook
After stepping up the capacity of those lovable iPods, Apple just keeps coming up with announcements. Last week at the Apple Expo trade show in Paris, CEO Steve Jobs said the company will replace the last of its titanium PowerBooks with updated aluminum versions, and Mac fans are curious about what's new under the hood. The biggest change was to the 15-inch version, which gains options such as AirPort Extreme wireless networking, a slot-loading Superdrive (for burning DVDs or CDs), and a backlit keyboard. The only drawback we can see is this loaded PowerBook's $2,599 price tag. But big price tags are nothing new for PowerBook users, who are always looking for the newest, top-of-the-line models. Is this update worth the big bucks? Will this really be the "year of the notebook," as Jobs predicted? We're not sure about the second question, but check back soon to read our full review for the answer to the first. |
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AMD
Squeaking in just at the end of last week, you were already hunting for info on the latest from Intel's biggest chip competitor, AMD, and its release of the latest, greatest performance processor, the Athlon 64. The 64 stands for 64-bit processing, which translates to more memory for handling intensive software applications such as high-end games and multimedia programs. So, while the Athlon 64 isn't running at the Intel 3GHz barrier, "more megahertz isn't the story here," as our desktops editor Matt Elliott puts it. After testing one of these new PCs, the Polywell Poly 900NF3-FX1, the power is pretty clearly there. But everyone is wondering, do consumers really need 64 bits? With AMD's 64-bit chips costing hardware makers roughly the same as Intel's 32-bit chips, they may not even care; and if makers pass those low costs on to consumers, they probably won't either. As software makers move to take advantage of the extra performance, users may get even more incentive to go along for the ride. |
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