Erik Staats

A startup called Oxy Systems has announced software that allows music to be downloaded from a users’ PC’s to their cell phones over the wireless networks. This would obviate the need for large storage on cell phones for music since new tracks can be downloaded as needed.

Of course, you’ll want an unlimited data plan or those downloads could be costly.

The service is called Phling and will also enable sharing of music with up to six friends. It also enables photo transfers to and from your PC. This could be pretty interesting.
Start-up claims to offer next mobile-music thing | CNET News.com

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MIT is working on wireless power beacons that can transmit power up to 12 feet, even through obstacles. This could potentially enable truly wireless wireless devices. The artical doesn’t mention anything about how much power can be transmitted. Presumably, it’s not enough to power your 60″ plasma TV.

Imagine a house with a power beacon at every electrical outlet. All low power devices could stay constantly charged. Way cool!

EETimes.com - MIT claims advance in wireless power transfer

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Now anyone can be a rock guitar star with the air guitar shirt. Sensors in the shirt transform air guitar arm movements to real guitar sounds. I wouldn’t be surprised to see this make its way into some video game or some great YouTube videos.

Wearable guitar instrument shirt interview (Video)

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Looks like some folks from TerraSoft along with others at SCEI got Mozilla apps running on Fedora Core 5 on the PS3. The author of this blurb wonders if Songbird would run too. I also wonder…

Hmm, I may have to get a PS3. With an HD and WiFi, a PS3 attached to your TV and stereo would make a great Songbird platform. DAAP client and server support would be even sweeter!
Linux Fedora Core 5 + PS3 = Open Source OS That Runs Mozilla! | The iHigh.com Network

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Microsoft announced that Universal Music will be receiving over $1 in royalties for each Zune sold. This is to offset the money Universal is supposedly losing due to pirating. Microsoft said that they may make similar deals with other media providers.

Universal will consider asking Apple for an iPod royalty when their contract is up next year. Good luck with that, Universal:)

This is an unfortunate precedent that hopefully won’t extend beyond the Zune. I don’t pirate music, so why should I have to pay? Of course, I don’t plan on buying a Zune either. Hopefully, such deals won’t get legislated like they were for DAT.
Microsoft strikes deal for music | CNET News.com

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In case you couldn’t tell from my posts and the Songbird hacking I’ve been doing, I’m a nerd. Check out my score:

How much of a nerd are you?

NerdTests.com - Lots of Fun for Geeks and Nerds!

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ExtremeTech has a nice review of our favorite media player, Songbird. My iPod extension even gets a mention. Woohoo!

Songbird: The Firefox of Media Players

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Apparently, there’s some work going on to integrate Amie Street with Songbird. I blogged a bit about Amie Street. They price songs by popularity. Pretty interesting to see them integrate with Songbird. I haven’t tried that out yet.
Blog » Better Integration for Songbird and Other Cool New Stuff - Amie St

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Cingular has announced that they’re going to offer music downloads for their customers. It will be partnering with Napster, Yahoo Music, XM Satellite Radio, and eMusic. This article has some interesting analysis of the mobile music market. IDG predits 54 million downloads by 2010.

Songs can cost two times or more than regular downloads over the internet plus a monthly charge for a data plan. I don’t see this lasting too long. With WiFi phones and mobile data plans, customers can theoretically use the same download services on their phones that they can use on their computers.

Presumably, the mobile operators will disable access to other services. I’m sure there will be hacks around that, and eventually the mobile operators will have to open the phones up to all services.
Cingular to jump onto mobile-music bandwagon | CNET News.com

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Apple has pushed the Japanese online music store Oricon out of the PC-based music download market. Despite a volume of 90,000 tunes a month, Oricon could not turn a profit.

What’s most interesting is that Oricon will remain in the mobile phone music download market. Apparently, in Japan, the mobile download market is quite a bit bigger than the PC-based music download market ($249M vs. $1.9B). In the overall market, the iTunes store holds onlly about a 5 percent market share.

Apple pushes Oricon to quit PC music downloads | CNET News.com

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