By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews

Wal-Mart quietly closed its video download service on 12/21, so quietly that no one noticed it — perhaps because no one used the site in the first place.

The store first opened last November, though it didn’t really get moving until early in February. Ironically, the first line of the NY Times article said, “Wal-Mart Stores may have lost the online DVD rental battle, but it has no plans to lose the higher-stakes video downloading war.” Looks like that was wrong.

Go to the video download site today, and you’ll find the message above (click to enlarge).

Worried about those videos you may have purchased? Wal-Mart has a FAQ page to assuage your fears.

Key points:

The videos you purchased and downloaded are yours to keep. Whoopee.

You can play your videos as many times as you wish on the computer you used to download the videos. Due to licensing restrictions, you cannot copy or transfer your video files and play them on a different computer. Ah, as long as the computer you downloaded it onto never dies, you’re OK.

More details on the FAQ page linked above.

Based on how quickly this was noticed, we can see how many people were using the service, but based on Apple’s deal with 20th Century Fox for video download rentals and more, it was likely a goner soon anyway.

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews

iTunes, Wal-Mart, and Amazon’s “Amazon MP3” service sell DRM-free music downloads, but so far only from EMI (along with a “test” by Universal Music Group). Today Amazon.com announced it has beaten Apple (!) to the punch; it’s signed a deal with Warner Music Group to sell MP3 downloads, giving customers the choice of more than 2.9 Million songs on Amazon MP3.

This is a major coup by Amazon.com, which yesterday announced its best holiday season ever. In a emailed press release, Bill Carr, Amazon.com VP of Digital Music said:

“Our customers are delighted with our DRM-free MP3 service. We have received thousands of emails from our customers since our September launch thanking us for offering the biggest selection of high-quality, MP3 audio downloads which play on virtually any music device they own today or will own in the future. With the addition of great Warner Music Group content, our customers will discover even more of the music they love on Amazon MP3.”

Warner Music Group also chimed in, with Michael Nash, Senior VP, Digital Strategy and Business Development for Warner Music Group said:

“Consumers want flexibility with respect to what they can do with music once they purchase it, and we want them to have that flexibility, which is why we’re pleased to offer our artists’ music on Amazon MP3.”

We Say: Interesting that Warner Music Group would do this, considering their response to Steve Jobs’ call to the major labels to remove DRM from all music: CEO Edgar Bronfman flatly rejected that idea.

Could this be more fallout from the stiff negotiations that media companies are having with Apple over iTunes pricing? After all, Universal’s “test” explicitly excludes iTunes as well, and NBCU’s move away from iTunes shows the displeasure media companies are feeling with Apple.

Note: although Apple sells DRM-free music, it’s in unprotected AAC format, not the more universal MP3 format, which gives Amazon.com and other vendors a major advantage. Of course, iTunes’ market share gives it an even larger advantage.

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews

Privacy and Google: many people say they don’t mix, or at least, don’t mix well. Seems like every day we hear about some new Google privacy flap. Here’s still another problem, but is it somewhat overblown?

On Dec. 14th, in Google Reader Help and on the Official Google Reader Blog, they posted about a new feature, which, as they put it:

The short description of it is this: If any of your friends from Google Talk are using Reader and sharing items, you’ll see them listed in your sidebar under “Friends’ shared items.” Similarly, they’ll be able to see any items you’re sharing. You can hide items from any friend you don’t want to see, and you can also opt out of sharing by removing all your shared items.

This is still a very experimental feature, so we’d love to hear what you think of it. Thanks, and happy sharing!

That last line about it being experimental is key, I think, as it appears they didn’t gauge public reaction too well.
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By Martin Regtien
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

It looks like a nice retro design but Paul Moons says: Thecus is renowned for their high quality Network Attached Storage (NAS) boxes and with the release of the N3200 Thecus looks to have outdone itself.

Not only does the N3200 boast high data security and strong performance figures, but with its elegant black finish and blue LCD, this NAS box is quite a looker too.

Read on for more.. 

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews

Happy holidays to all. This, after all, a technology site, and despite the fact this is on YouTube, and you may have seen this already, I would be totally remiss if I did not let our readers see it here.

Also, it’s gonna be a slow news day! Thanks to Hardware Upgrade and instrumentalist Alessandro Bordin.

There’s little I can add, enjoy.

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews

Many kids today are selfish and think only of themselves (come on, be honest), but this kid has been doing good stuff his entire life. Tyler Strasser, 11, of Mount Holly, North Carolina has, since he was 3, collected toys every Christmas for the disadvantaged.

This year he came up with a great idea: everyone who donated a toy would get a raffle ticket. Raffle winners would get an entry into a Wii Bowling tournament, and the winner would get the Wii. Knowing how scarce Wii’s are, you have to bet he had plenty of entrants in the raffle last weekend.

Strasser was also a semi-finalist in this year’s Volvo for Life Awards. While he didn’t win, according to the site, he’s collected over 500,000 toys since he first started. He’s even got his own site, Tyler’s Mission, devoted to his causes (though the site is very obviously still under construction).

We Say: He may not have won a Volvo for Life award, but in my book, he’s a definite winner.

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews

This Fortune story is interesting, but what it doesn’t mention is as interesting as what it does mention. This MacBook is indeed #1 on the Amazon.com Computer Sales List (at the time of this writing), despite the fact that the #2 seller is (after rebates) priced nearly 50% lower, but there’s other news as well (click to enlarge image above).

Helped along by rebates ranging from $75 to $150, three Apple-brand notebooks are on the top 10 list this morning. The other bestsellers are the 80 GB MacBook (No. 7) and the 120 GB MacBook Pro (No. 10).

Price cutting among the competition is even steeper. HP’s (HPQ) 250 GB Pavilion (No. 5) is selling for $999.99, 27% off the $1,375 list price. Source: Fortune

We Say: Naturally since the list is updated every hour, this could change at any time, but right now the Nokia N800 is #3 on the list. There are 9 HP PC / laptop computers in the top 25. There are 3 MacBooks in the top 10, and (it figures, given the prior figure) the 3 Year AppleCare Protection Plan for the MacBook is #22!

The Asus Eee 4G also has two entries in the top 15, with white apparently being more popular at #8, though at #12 black is sold out (perhaps if it wasn’t it would be higher than white?).

Also, if anyone doubts the desktop PC is on the way out, there are 18 laptops in the top 25.

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews

Previously only available as a private beta to donators, a PlayStation 1 emulator for the iPhone and iPod has been released to the public. The version is 0.1.0 so it’s obviously far from done, but psx4iPhone is available now.

The developer, ZodTTD, indicates that although there will be public releases to come, if you want to see the full range of beta releases, you should sign up for the ZodTTD Beta Testers Club by donating.

To install the app,

• Download the file (from the site above).
• Extract the zip file to a folder on your computer.
• Using any SFTP client connect to your iPod.
• Navigate to /Applications/ and upload psx4all.app to it.
• Right-click on the folder, and go to properties or permissions and set them to 0755 recursively.
• Reboot your device and you should see it appear on your Springboard.

psx4iphone accepts the following game formats: .ISO, .IMG, .BIN, .Z, .ZNX

We Say: Controlling a game with the touchscreen instead of a regular controller is likely to take getting used to, but for someone really wanting to play … it’ll be doable.