By Alice Hill
RealTechNews

Anyone who travels a lot will simply look at this device and sigh with relief. Why? Hotels are awful about providing enough power outlets near the desk - and with more and more gadgets hitting the road, it means a room strewn with charging cell phones and laptops and headsets, etc. One room I had not long ago sported a whole free outlet behind the bed - picture groping around behind that disgusting headboard.

Spec-wise, not much to say that you can’t see here. It boasts three surge protected AC outlet plugs, and will also charge two USB devices. Price: $24.99.

Product Page
Source: Belkin

Our Take: True, it means hauling along one more device and it isn’t exactly cheap, but if you really, really travel, this one is no-brainer, especially if you can expense it.

By Alice Hill
RealTechNews

Happy Birthday Mr. MP3 player! 10 years old and look how far you have come. From the first player shown here - the all but forgotten MPMan F10 from Korean manufacturer Saehan Information Systems, to today’s iPod-dominated array of colorful video/audio players, things have certainly evolved.

The MP3Man F10 boasted a whopping 32MBs of flash-based storage to hold about 8 songs sampled at 128Kb/s. Songs were loaded onto the player via the parallel port (anyone remember configuring ports and getting COM and IRQ conflicts?) Retail price $250.

When Diamond brought the Rio PMP300 to market at $200, the player race was on. Many think that the Rio PMP300 was the first MP3 player, but a lawsuit wit the the RIAA gave it enough press to leave the F10 in the dust. (Until Apple came calling.) Sony meanwhile was focused on the doomed MiniDisc, and the rest as they say, was history. Source: The Register

We Say: Check out those tiny LCD displays!
Update: Want more Rio pics? Check out RioWorld. (I have owned 3 models myself.)

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

If nothing else, it appears that the contentious divorce between Paul McCartney and Heather Mills has led to one good result - well, not for either of them, but for music fans. McCartney has authorized the release of the Beatles’ back catalog on iTunes in a deal that is valued at $400 million, according to a Daily Mail report.

The deal will be exclusive to iTunes, which is unfortunate, as I would much rather see it on the all-MP3 (and DRM-free) Amazon Mp3 service. Despite the music being on the EMI label, McCartney can choose who to deal with; however, since it is on EMI it would be available on iTunes in DRM-free format.

The majority of the money will go to McCartney, Ringo Starr and the families of John Lennon and George Harrison. Some of it will go to the EMI (as I mentioned) Sony recording groups, who each own certain Beatles recording or publishing rights.

Additionally, some will go to Michael Jackson, who owns some of the rights as well. Based on reports of late mortgage payments on Neverland Ranch, he could probably use a rapid infusion of cash.

Although McCartney could use the funds for his settlement, the Daily Mail also says that it’s possible Heather Mills might ask for a larger amount, somewhat of a pyrrhic result.

It’s unclear yet as to just when iTunes will have the music for sale, but you can be sure I’ll keep you posted.

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

Well, they only missed it by a little more than a week. Wednesday Apple started emailing invitations to a special media event to be held March 6th. While Apple is generally close-mouthed about these events, this time they were pretty open, saying in an email sent to members of the media:

“Please join us to learn about the iPhone software roadmap, including the iPhone SDK and some exciting new enterprise features.”

The invitation-only event will be held on Thursday, March 6 at 10 a.m. on the Apple campus in Cupertino.

Announced in October of last year, the SDK was expected on Tuesday, but what’s a week between friends? The iPhone was birthed as a very closed platform, with no easy way to add application - except through web applications, and of course hacking.

The SDK would mean native applications could be written without “jailbreaking” the phone.

Perhaps even more interesting is the part about “new enterprise features.” Could this be Exchange server support?

You’ll recall that although the iPhone was launched as a consumer phone, earlier this year it was reclassified by AT&T as an Enterprise-class device. I can see CEOs salivating over possibly trading in their Blackberry devices for iPhones.

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

Last June, iTunes passed Amazon.com to become the #3 music retailer. Eight months later, it’s passed Best Buy and is now #2, trailing only Wal-Mart.

The numbers are - well, pretty amazing. Apple says there are now 50 million iTunes Store customers, with a total of over four billion songs sold - and according to Apple, with an incredible 20 million songs sold on Christmas Day 2007 alone (wasn’t anyone opening presents rather than buying more?).

Let’s face it, CDs are now passe. With music downloading (legal guys, not just illegal!) becoming more and more the norm, Wal-Mart had better start watching its back.

That said, I’d really like to know how Amazon MP3 is doing. With all their music DRM-free, I would expect them to make some serious inroads - except perhaps for one thing. Using iTunes (the software) to integrate with your iPod, of course it’s easier to just go to iTunes (the store) to buy.

However, all the people I know are looking at Amazon MP3 as their first choice, not iTunes. Of course, the signing of Sony BMG just happened in mid-January - but I’d still expect (hope) Amazon MP3 can make a dent in the iTunes juggernaut.

Check out the full Apple press release here.

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews

Available immediately, Apple has announced new models of the iPhone (16GB) and iPod Touch (32GB). Ever since the 16GB iPod Touch was announced in September we all knew it was only a matter of time until Apple slapped that 16GB into its larger brother. At the same time we get a still-larger capacity iPod Touch. Both are $499, and as I said both are available now.

And of course there are still the 8GB iPhone for $399 and 16GB ($399) and 8GB ($299) iPod Touches.

In the press release, said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide iPod and iPhone Product Marketing said:

“For some users, there’s never enough memory. Now people can enjoy even more of their music, photos and videos on the most revolutionary mobile phone and best Wi-Fi mobile device in the world.”

Yes, that old adage about filling up available memory - though I’d call it storage, even though it is flash.

Although Apple says it’s available now - and that means both U.S. and international customers - that doesn’t mean all stores have them already. They are already available for order at the online Apple Store, though.

We Say: Now, about that 32GB iPhone (if they can 32GB in the smaller iPod Touch …) - perhaps that’s waiting for the inevitable 3G version?

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews

As I indicated yesterday, I’ll believe it when it happens: free, legal, unlimited downloads from all the major labels and more. Right. So far it hasn’t worked out that way.

For one, the site keeps pushing back its launch. It was supposed to be over the weekend. Then it was 12:01AM Monday. Now the site says it’ll be tonight.

Also, Qtrax said it had deals with all four major labels. This sounded too good to be true, because it was hard enough for Amazon MP3 to sign all four labels with a more conventional offering. Well, although the Times Online announced the new service this morning, it also later posted a later story embarrassingly (for Qtrax) titled “Music file-share site Qtrax forced into humiliating U-turn.” Yep, as many (including myself) suspected, it appears all the deals that Qtrax had been talking about haven’t happened.

All four labels deny any deal with Qtrax, although Universal did indicate it was in discussions with Qtrax.

Alan Klepfisz, CEO of Qtrax said,

“We are not idiots. We wouldn’t have launched the service in front of the whole music industry unless we had secured its backing. We feel we have been unfairly crucified because a competitor tried to damage us. Everyone is very upset. We do have industry agreements including the major labels. Even today we are working on more deals.”

He added that although “ink hadn’t dried” on some of the deals, Qtrax still planned to deliver on its promises “within months.”

We Say: Hadn’t dried? If you listen to the labels, it sounds like the ink hasn’t even been put down on paper yet.

In addition, as we know, with the Qtrax app being required for searching, downloading and playing of tracks, despite their assertion of “no spyware,” you know there is some “phoning home” going on in order to provide the number of times each track is played for revenue purposes. Sounds like something that will get privacy advocates’ hackles up.

And with no iPod support (at least for now, if ever), will this service be DOA? If it was me, I’d hold off … unless you want to try out their software just for comparison purposes.

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews

When Amazon MP3 launched last year, you can bet it was looked upon by Apple as just another minor threat to iTunes’ dominance. But with the signing of Sony BMG, Amazon is the only retailer selling DRM-free music from all four major music labels. And now it’s a major threat.

Sunday Amazon announced that Amazon MP3 is going global, spreading DRM-free music worldwide.

In a press release, Bill Carr, Amazon.com Vice President of Digital Music said:

“We have received thousands of e-mails from Amazon customers around the world asking us when we will make Amazon MP3 available outside of the U.S. They can’t wait to choose from the biggest selection of high-quality, low-priced DRM-free MP3 music downloads which play on virtually any music device they own today or will own in the future. We are excited to tell those customers today that Amazon MP3 is going international this year.”

No doubt they are being bombarded with emails, but this certainly isn’t going to slow them down. You can except “when, when, when?” emails to start filtering in to Amazon.com.

I’ve always said that the fact that Amazon MP3 used the standard MP3 format rather than AAC as Apple does with its DRM-free selections is a major advantage. To be honest, friends and others I’ve spoken to are all moving to Amazon MP3 for their purchases. Yes, it’s not quite as easy as buying straight through the iTunes application, and it’s still in beta, but then how many years has Gmail been in beta, right?

We Say: Unfortunately Amazon can’t be more specific than 2008, as that could be as long as 11 more months, and that gives Apple plenty of time to get its act together - although you can bet Jobs and company have already felt a measure of concern over Amazon MP3 already.