Cesar at Zune Insider has posted a videoof the new Zune UI.  I think this is the same B-roll footage provided to thepress, but it gives a good overview of some of the UI features.

Study: legal music far outweighs P2P on portable music players: Only two years ago we were told that 'stolen' was the most common format on digital music players. A new study suggests that this is far from the truth. (Via Ars Technica.)

Without knowing the methodology of the original study, this is difficult to evaluate, but it agrees qualitatively with what I see in my immediate circle. I wonder to what extent the decay of P2P downloads may be an indirect effect of fear of malware, especially since so many of the P2P programs have been notorious for adware and spyware with security and stability risks. Are malware writers RIAA's best friends?

Interoperability and DRM Are Mutually Exclusive: The music industry’s insistence upon DRM iswhat put the ITMS in the position that Apple now enjoys; the recordindustry is decrying a lock-in advantage that they themselves handedto Apple. (Via Daring Fireball.)

This article is a good start, but it gives too much credit to the music industry. They are not just misguided about the impossibility of interoperable DRM. Anyone with a clue has understood this since the original interoperable DRM efforts collapsed circa 2000. Some music industry executives may still lack a clue, but they do not have much incentive to learn because the central issue for them is not interoperability, but control. Attacking Apple here (like the publishers attacking Google, or the telecoms attacking net neutrality) is misdirection covering up that issue. The major labels don't really care that one DRM system dominates the market, they only care that the system is not theirs to do as they please, for example in introducing variable per-track pricing (shades of the telecoms and net neutrality).

I rarely buy from iTMS because I dislike its tying down to particular machines and lower quality than what I get by buying CDs and ripping them at a custom AAC rate. Not to mention the pleasure of walking down to my locally-owned record store and browsing their well-chosen new arrivals (last month's purchases):

• Trio Beyond (Jack de Johnette, Larry Goldings, John Scofield): Saudades
• John Coltrane: Soultrane
• Marc Johnson: Shades of Jade
• Louis Mhlanga: World Traveler
• Boards of Canada: Trans Canada Highway
• Thelonious Monk: The Classic Quartet
• Vijay Iyer and Rudesh Mahanthappa: Raw Materials
• Andrey Dergatchev: The Return (soundtrack of the intense, beautiful movie by Andrey Zvyagintsev)
• Christian McBride: Live at Tonic

read more:

Wiredmag has a goodlook at the technology that will make the new superscraper that will standon the original spot of the Twin Towers.  Starting with a fortified steel and3ft concrete core; the design's steel frame will interconnect to distribute load inthe event of another terrorist attach or cataclysmic event.

The tower has a 200-foot-tall, bomb-resistant concrete base surrounded by a multi-layeredglass-curtain wall designed to be impervious to any kind of explosion.

The scrapers are supposed to be done by 2011.  I've been avoiding Ground Zerofor five years- the dense smell and light smoke that permeated the city whenI was there one month later has never left me.  Once the memorial is open, I'llgo there.

In the echo of the Supreme Court’s resounding affirmation last week of the rights of individuals to a fair trial, of the limits of the power of the executive, and of a system of checks and balances—in other words, the principles on which our country was founded, ill-defined war or no—this 230th anniversary of the independence of our country seems especially dear. So I like to turn back to the source of much of that dearness, as well as to look around for some other words of inspiration. As Thomas Jefferson wrote in the last letter of his life, ten days before his death:

May it [the Declaration of Independence] be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.

The emphasis, of course, is mine.

• A while ago I was kindly invited to Ljubljana to speak to the local web designers & developers about web typography – how could I resist? My talk last night formed episode 85 of Spletne Urice (Web Hour), a series of weekly talks held in CyberPipe, a café/bar/computer museum/free wifi hotspot in central Ljubljana. It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening, with a good crowd contributing to a excellent Q&A session, which apparently was quite unusual for Slovenes, who claim to be a very reserved nation of people. The slides are available online.

  Reserved Slovenes may be, but they are certainly hospitable too. So many thanks must go to Marko, Marko, Jure, Andraž and the guys at Zemanta for keeping me entertained and connected. Thanks also go to Parsek Interactive for getting me there and putting me up.

  Speaking of Zemanta, do check it out – it’s a clever way of enhancing the content of your blog posts. By way of Firefox extension, Zemanta analyses your blog post text and suggests photos, links and tags which you can add or remove by a simple click.

  The photos are gleaned from sources of CC-licensed images such as Wikimedia Commons and Flickr; the links from various news sources, Wikipedia and Zemanta-enabled blogs; and the tags by text analysis. Zemanta currently works with Wordpress, Blogger, Typepad, LiveJournal, and there’s an API in private testing as we speak.

  I should also add the Ljubljana is a lovely city, with the relaxed cafe culture we Brits seem to lust after. The weather was gorgeous for this – my second visit – and I think I’ve been luck enough to see the city in its two best guises: blanketed with snow and bathed in sunshine. The city also has a vibrant web community, with events on almost every night, all run by volunteers. I may well be back again.

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• What is the context for registration? People want instant gratification. It’s fairly easy to switch providers –low barriers to entry for online services. People will lie to protect their identity. Remembering account details is difficult.
• In order to establish an effective design, need to embrace user needs & leverage their natural behavior
• Different structures for user registration. Pre: needs unique identifier. Post: encourages return transactions. Immersive: promotes usage. Part of the way you use the product.
• Connecting with the user: build trust so can get factual data within the system
• Error & help text: fun, approachable angle to ease people into it
• Only ask necessary questions
• Only need unique identifier for communication: aol, gmail, etc.
• Banking & Finance: needs identifier for increased security
• Commerce: no meaningful ID needed for commercial transactions
• If going to use a unique identifier, make it easy for people. Use email or a common ID method for registration if you do not need a unique identifier
• Respect your user’s locale: get message to international users that a localized version of site content is available.
• Use CAPTCHA wisely: Provide audio version for the visually impaired, allow user to request a different image, Use CAPTCHA to protect commodities like usernames
• Online circle of life: register, user, forget account information
• Build a relationship prior to or with registration
• Be personable: use humor if appropriate
• Explain the value of questions if they may be seen as out of context
• Use an immersive registration process when possible

• Email: quickest, assumes people have control over email
• Challenge/response model: prone to repeated errors because people lie, works best when information is up to date
• Forensic: confirms account activity and details in order to reset password: verifies actions only known by the account owner, safest method, most difficult to implement
• Email recovery: put the user in the control. Need to ask for email address from user. Confirm where it is sending
• Challenge/recovery questions change over time.
• Users want to retain privacy and may be worried about ID theft
• Put the user in control of account recovery
• Remind users that their account may contain old information
• Use human support when possible

Uninnovate.com hasan interestingarticle on Apple's new support of 'Reverse syncing' of content with the iTunes7 release yesterday:

Today, Apple released iTunes 7.0,among otherthings. In earlier versions of iTunes, Apple didits best to prevent users from being able to copy music from an iPod back to adesktop computer. Now, Apple has changed course and is marketing “ReverseSyncing” as a new feature of iTunes 7.

But there is one giant catch:

1. Music and media not purchased from the iTunes store only syncs one way, fromyour computer to your iPod.

This is uninnovation in its most frustrating form. It’s easy to spot and avoid drm-saturatedjunk, but these kinds of subtle limitations in an otherwise great product frustrateusers and drive them to alternative applications.How about trusting the user enough to let them get at their own files without thesechildish restrictions?

WMP11 added reverse filetransfer support back in March which works with purchased, and clear content.(It’s also had album art matching in WMP9, dramatically improved in WMP11). I thinkthe author is being a bit overzealous however in his claim of “uninnovation”- it'salways been easy to transfer music off your iPod, it's just a little hidden. Here it’s a little less hidden.

I’ve seen lots of chatter on iTV - Apple's Media Center Extender-esque device forstreaming video to the living room.  It feels like we’ve been here before. LongZheng at istartedsomething.com hasa good recap of the relative strengths and weaknesses of products in this space.  It seems a bit odd that Apple would break from long-time tradition and givea 'sneak preview' of a product that won't be available for at least Q1 '07, particularlywhen they could have held the announce to availability around MacWorld in January.It's clear they had to do this to try and spur purchase of movies from theirnew store- with no rental model, people just don't want to buy movies towatch on their portable players. Tell them they'll be able to play it in other placesas well around the home and their likelihood of purchase is higher.  It’s the battleof cognitive dissonance - buyer's remorse. After all, you're already dealing withthe psychological barrier in that the user is buying an intangible good, somethingwithout physical form that perceptually has less value than physical media such asDVDs. But... you're going to charge about the same as a physical DVD. Without theBonus DVD content.  Oh and the 640x480 video quality people are downloading isgoing to be between VHS and DVD quality (which offers 720x480p).  Never mindthat it will be potentially less for letterboxed content since the new iPod doesn'tsupport 16:9 (widescreen) display.  In the time it will take most customersto download one of these movies, I could have gone to the store, bought the DVD, popcorn,a 6-pack of Coke, dinner, come home, cooked dinner, and be ready to watch. Ina rental model, all of these issues can be forgiven for immediate gratification anda lower price, as witnessed by the popularity of Video On Demand and InDemand services.

The challenges in streaming TV from the PC aren't just the hypothesized need for higherspeed wireless (802.11n) which should be provisionally approved in early 2007. This might be delaying their launch, but streaming 640x480 video across the home hasbeen possible with Media Center Extender for just about two years now.  A challengeis going to be convincing consumers to buy and set up yet another single-purpose devicein the living room, another remote, another input on the TV for this thing.

Today, you can get an Xbox 360 that includesMedia Center Extender at no additional cost. Over 16 million Media Centercustomers can use this today, no additional charge. Even if you don’t have a TV tunerin your PC, you can connect a USB tuner and record TV or HDTV (OTA today, DigitalCable with equipped PCs with Vista). No additional fees.  As announced at CESlast year, multiple HDTV manufacturers are putting Media Center extender into theirdesigns, something that costs less than a night at the movies to implement.

As for another box in the living room, the Xbox 360 does HD gaming, DVD/HD-DVD Playback,Music, Photos, Video, TV/HDTV playback, runs rich media apps from a multitude of providers,and delivers an increasing amount of media content via Xbox Live, including HD.  And it's going to get significantly better with WindowsVista Premium's Media Center features – automatically updating your Xbox 360 tosupport in the family room with the same level of animation and experience. 

Either way, a saying comes to mind: “A rising tide raises all boats” and for thatI welcome Apple's foray.  But if Apple's iTV costs the same as an Xbox, offers nothing more than a 'simplified remote' and fewer mainstream features whichreally makes more sense when competing for  consumer dollars outside the Job'sfaithful?  With Sony and Nintendo's Wii also vying for that same space, it'sabout to get a bit more crowded. Or perhaps just noisy.  So begins the 'Great FamilyRoom Battle of 2007'.

(Disclaimer: I used to work on Media Center, but haven't for over a year, andspeak only for myself.)