Music retailer eMusic has removed the subscription requirement in order to buy music from it's online store. The announcement by CEO Adam Klein brings eMusic in line with other online music stores in not charging customers a monthly fee just to be able to download songs, something that opens up the 14-year-old store to more potential customers.
A change to copyright law in Japan sees harsher penalties on illegal downloaders of movies and music. Japan's legislature, the Diet, made downloading a crime punishable by a fine of two million yen ($25,000) or up to two years in prison. Some groups, including the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, find this to be an excessive measure in a country that still relies on the sales and rentals of physical CDs and DVDs as opposed to legal download services.
Verizon is allegedly throttling the 4G services of some users, in addition to its announcement that it will be throttling 3G services for the top five percent of its data intensive users. A Verizon customer who somehow managed to plow through 60GB of data in 13 days has found that his connection speeds have been slowed to below 3G speeds. This is even though Verizon had explicitly stated that its new throttling policy only applied to its 3G services.
Eltima have brought out a public beta of v2 of their download manager and torrent client Folx, incorporating user requests and new features such as iTunes integration, auto-tagging, and an improved file manager that can download from RSS feeds and sort downloads using "smart groups." Buyers of the $20 pro version starting now will receive the beta and the finished v2 product for free.
Apple has released Lexmark Printer Driver Update 1.1, which includes the latest drivers for the Lexmark line of printers. The 71MB update was released Tuesday and is only visible when a Lexmark printer is connected, or a print queue has been created for an earlier Lexmark driver.
Sky, a UK-based TV, Internet and phone provider, is reported to soon start offering a subscription-based music download service in collaboration with Universal Music. Unlike other similar services, the downloaded music will be DRM-free, meaning users can freely copy it, share it, burn CDs and play it on all their devices. Sky's service, which the company claims will be the world's first, will initially offer access to hundreds of thousands of songs.
After several years of Xbox 360 owners having to remain signed into Live to access purchased content on exchanged or repaired consoles, Microsoft on Thursday finally unveiled a DRM Transfer Tool allowing users to play content without a Live connection. Gamerscore writes that the tool provides users with the ability to re-register their games and downloaded content once per year to a new console. The process will not work on movie files, since Microsoft does not consider the content to be "owned' by the user.
Calling its photo-sharing service is a “natural extension of the Macintosh application experience,” Smilebox on Tuesday announced support for the Mac platform by releasing a free application that allows Mac users to download photos, videos and music and offers “seamless” support for iPhoto, iTunes and Photo Booth. Smilebox says it has more than 700 designs and templates for scrapbooks, slideshows, greeting cards, photo-books and post cards. Launched in 2006, Smilebox says it has 2.6 million PC users each month. Users can create and share their own designs, or purchase "premium designs" from Hallmark, Making Memories, Madison Park Greetings, K & Company and Smilebox's in-house designers. Individual items can be bought for $2-$4 or through a $5 monthly subscription.
Though servers offering the software are currently buckling and inaccessible to many users, Firefox 3.0 on Tuesday has made its debut with the Mozilla organization looking to set a record for browser downloads. The major new release of the open source Web browser is available today in approximately 50 languages, and is purportedly three times faster than its predecessor, offering "15,000 improvements" including a smart location bar and malware protection. The new Firefox 3 smart location bar, dubbed "Awesome Bar" by Mozilla, adapts to user entries over time. The Firefox 3 Library archives browsing history, bookmarks, and tags, where they can be searched and organized.
Readers of AT&T's Apple iPhone 3G website, have this weekend been left confounded by information that iPhone 3G data download speeds will apparently be limited to 1.4Mbps, while other devices tout much faster speeds. With the figure also echoed in the official AT&T press release, speculation is that the 1.4Mbps limit is not a website error. With the latest HSDPA cards now offering speeds up to 7.2Mbps, and even iPhone 3G rivals such as Motorola's Moto Q listed capable of 3.6Mbps speeds, it would seem that the iPhone 3G, despite being significantly faster than the first iPhone model, may not, at first glance, live up to its early "3G" promise; it is unclear why the yet-to-be-released device would be slower than "3G" device counterparts from other companies.
Yazsoft on Thursday unveiled a stripped down version of its download manager, Speed Download Lite 1.0, offering users a simplified, browser-integrated experience, and also celebrating the release with a 3G iPhone giveaway. The app features the core functionality of Speed Download, with a redesigned, customizable interface, while retaining the app's "turbo-charged" download capabilities. Speed Download Lite 1.0 is available for $20 from Yazsoft.
TransGaming has announced the launch of an online download portal for Mac games, bringing the same kind of service PC and console owners have known for years. Game Tree Online will complement the firm's Cider Portability Engine, which has allowed publishers to port a number of successful games to the Mac Platform since its introduction in 2006. In addition to providing online purchase, Game Tree Online will provide news and game promotions, and will allow users to post reviews.
Representing the latest effort to compete with iTunes in the burgeoning movie download space, CinemaNow is now offering a variety of paid content services through Windows Media Center. These include download-to-own movies, priced from $10 to $20; TV shows and music videos are priced at $2. The company claims that download-to-own movies are available day-and-date of retail DVD release, but doesn't mention the breadth of the upcoming library (right now there are about 3,400 feature-length movies in CinemaNow's collection). The service will also offer 24 hour movie rentals priced between $3 and $4. Select Pay-Per-View titles are available day-and-date of retail DVD release.
The subscription-based digital music retailer, eMusic, launches today in Canada online and in over 80 Best Buy stores and Avis car rental locations. This marks eMusic's first expansion into other markets, as the service has been in operation in the US since 2003 and recently surpassed 200 million downloads, making it the second biggest online music retailer next to iTunes. eMusic offers 3.5 million DRM-free MP3-format songs and audio books, allowing users to burn them to CDs, transfer them to personal MP3 players and make multiple copies for personal use.
Flying Mac today unveiled FarFinder, a remote file access for the Mac that allows users to browse and retrieve their files from their Mac using a standard web browser. In addition to working on a desktop or laptop computer, FarFinder can also be used through Safari on the iPhone and iPod touch. Since files can't really be downloaded to the iPhone, FarFinder will email the file to a desired address. FarFinder is currently available at a special price of $20.
Nothing is more frustrating than finding a file on the Internet and then having trouble downloading it to your computer. Sometimes downloading slows to a crawl and other times a web server may be down, forcing you to return repeatedly to a web site to download a file again. Fortunately, Speed Download 5 overcomes these problems by offering multiple file transferring features in an easy to use interface.
Deliver2Mac today unveiled two Runesoft game titles for download, Metris IV and MangaJongg. Metris IV is a Japanese art-inspired game that offers several different game modes to fans of Tetris-style games. Classic mode offers traditional game play, while New Art adds Jokers and other tile types to the mix. Colors challenges players to arrange tiles by color. The Ruins game type contains bits of rubble that the player must work around, while Ghost mode makes new tiles and lines appear to pressure the player when they play slowly. Metris is available for $20 from Deliver2Mac's website.
Firefox 3.0 Beta 3 is available for download from Mozilla's developer FTP site, according to Brazilian enthusiast site Blog.MacMagazine. Blogger Rafael Fischmann reports that a casual browse of Mozilla's public FTP server revealed the latest beta, which sports a very Mail-inspired, but slender interface. The popular browser takes a few design cues from other Apple applications as well, with the URL field resembling that of iPhoto's search field.
Yazsoft today unveiled Speed Download 5, a major update to its download and bandwidth manager, introducing a number of new features. Sporting a brand new interface, Speed Download also features several engine and component optimizations, increasing speed and compatibility. Users can download in simplified or advanced modes, and the minimized mode resembles the iTunes mini player. New users can purchase Speed Download 5 for $25, while users who bought v.4.x between January 1st, 2008 and February 12th, 2008 may upgrade for free.
Macrovision, the company largely responsible for modern DVD copy-protection schemes, has officially integrated its technologies with CinemaNow to offer downloads of CinemaNow premium video directly to Macrovision-enabled consumer electronics devices. Users who have registered Macrovision-enabled hardware at CinemaNow.com can use those devices to watch movies, TV shows, and music videos from CinemaNow's online library of available programming, according to TWICE.
Despite earlier suspicions that British band Radiohead would release its new album In Rainbows on the iTunes music store, digital shopping mogul Amazon is first to announce digital distribution of the new album, through its online MP3 store. According to Silicon Alley Insider, the band will be promoting the physical release of the album by streaming a free, hour-long concert featuring music from the CD, which frontman Thom Yorke says is a "wee celebration". Pricing for the album and tracks has been released, but prices typically sit at about 90˘ to $1 for tracks, while albums sell for around $10.
