Microsoft Wifi Media Player

By Jimmy Daniels
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

Just read about this over on Engadget, Microsoft’s new portable media player will have a bigger screen than the iPod video, it will have a Wifi connection, so you can download to it, and they are planning on letting every iPod user download the same songs they bought from iTunes for free!

Microsoft’s new portable audio and video player will have a screen that’s “bigger than that of the iPod video” (which isn’t really saying much) and built-in WiFi so you can not only download content directly to the player (sort of like with the MusicGremlin), but actually participate in an Xbox Live-like social network that will help you connect with other people with similar taste and interests. Whether that’s going to be the Live Anywhere service they introduced at E3 we don’t yet know. But we do know the tag line they’re pitching for the device combined with this new network is “Connected Entertainment.”

But it gets better. To attract current iPod users Microsoft is going to let you download for free any songs you’ve already bought from the iTunes Music Store. They’ll actually scan iTunes for purchased tracks and then automatically add those to your account. Microsoft will still have to pay the rights-holders for the songs, but they believe it’ll be worth it to acquire converts to their new player. Source: Engadget

We Say: This is a really good way to start out, I know many people who do not buy songs from iTunes, but this will definitely be a selling point for those that do. The feature I’m excited about will be the wifi connection, why, how many times have you wanted to copy songs from a friends iPod to yours? How cool would it be to be able to connect to their media player using wifi, enter a password they’ve chosen and download their songs right there. Now, I’m not saying this will be a feature that is supported, but come on, if I worked for Microsoft I would make sure it would be possible to do so. Come on Microsoft, make it happen!