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I’m not an expert on predicting things like mergers and sell outs, but I do listen to many podcasts, read many blogs, I try to keep up with technology. I did not see this coming. In a move that left some people speechless (me) Amazon posted a news release initiated by Business Wire, with details of Amazon to acquire Audible.com.

I don’t know about you but I think Audible has a tremendous influence in their line of business, I don’t hear of any other company announcing that their audio books are compatible with iPods or that have a direct link to the iTunes store. I’m thinking that Apple fans are going to be out of luck when thinking about buying audio books but I’m sure this will hurt Apple.

Amazon.com is positioning themselves is a digital distribution market with strong changes to become a dominant player in the digital distribution arena. Last year, Amazon.com announces that they will be selling DRM-free music on their website at significant lower prices than Apple’s iTunes. Then they introduced the Kindle, an e-book reader that looks promising with the ability to download books and newspaper from Amazon websites directly into the device.

With the addition of Audible.com to their lineup, Amazon has a strong catalog to move many people to their store and move people away from iTunes. Amazon.com already has a way to purchase other content other than just music and audio books, the problem is that most are not compatible with Mac. If they come to fix this small issue, I think that the Apple will experience a slow growth on new people paying for content on iTunes.

The merger still needs the approval of the shareholders and the SEC (Security Exchange Commission) to take place but no one is looking at any that will prevent this from happening. I’m intrigue on how this move will affect many podcasters that have sponsorships from Audible and the many people that have subscriptions downloading directly to iTunes.

Leave your comments here on this post, share with our community your thoughts. Thanks for reading.

Image from wordcast.audible.com

Blu-ray format is getting the attention it deserves, it began with the news of Warner dropping the HD-DVD from the formats they support. This week in the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Sony allegedly said that some Blu-ray titles will include an optimized version of the movie for the PSP, giving Blu-ray a more desirable stake in the HD format war that seem to be getting into an end.

I read a couple articles about this and how some people are questioning why is Sony still using the universal media disk (UMD) format. I’m in the same bandwagon, but at the same time if I was an owner of a PSP and had some UMD games and movies, I would be very upset if Sony decided to quit supporting the UMD format unexpectedly.

The UMD format will face out, every media format does. The question is how is Sony dealing with this in the future, I think they should announce this sooner rather than later. With an announcement like this, they can safely transition to a UMD-free next-generation PSP, at the same time, we all know how Sony likes to stick to their strategies to proprietary formats.

A couple questions rise from this announcement, seems like you need to have a PS3 and a PSP to transfer the movie, will Sony allow this type of transfer over a computer with a Blu-ray drive? What about transferring from Sony Blu-ray players, and lastly is not clear whether the transfer is limited, like for a period of time or limited transfer to your PSP, etc.

Other interesting thoughts are, will other studios including a copy of their movies in iPod/iPhone format. I know there are some rumors about his already, but is not clear, on how the portable format will work on Apple’s products.

Whatever happens I’m happy to see that big companies and movie studios are getting the point where people want to have portability of their content. Leave your comments about this subject and don’t forget to subscribe, thanks for reading.

[Breaking News: Rumors are strong that Fox is including a portable copy for the iPod/iPhone on their DVDs.]

Is this the end? Will it survive 2008? Common give me a break, I’m not mentioning names but lately all the Linux news I’ve seen around are beating this topic to death. Maybe is something that needs to happen to understand people’s reaction, or maybe people are being naive about it. Where are the good news about Linux, Ubuntu just released a great, very stable version of their Linux OS.

I’m sorry to post my personal opinion on the subject but its time to end this negativity, and start posting about what really matters, the fact is that Linux is very useful. We need bloggers to start supporting open source projects creatively. Here are some ideas and for those of you who need more tips and tricks when writing about Linux, I will be talking more about it on this Blog.

How about talking about making your iPod or iPhone work with Linux, there is a piece of software called iPHUX that lets you do just that. But guess what, no one seem to care about this guy efforts to make this work, the last firmware he test was 1.0, then the project seems to be abandoned.

Several open source projects are in the works and getting better at working with the iPod, but I haven’t yet find one that is supported by a large community. This doesn’t mean that we don’t have passionate groups and loyal followers of the Linux OS, is just that they don’t get the attention they deserve.

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Bose released the SoundDock Portable Digital Music System sometime ago and I feel that it has been ignored. We all know that Bose create some of the most advance audio speakers on the market, it doesn’t only sound nice but the quality is often found above and beyond their counterparts. All these come with a price, Bose equipment is above the medium price found in the market for similar equipment.

On the previews version of the SoundDock there was many missing features that people feel the speakers should have, and for this reason it was often ignored and not selected as the preferred speakers for the iPod. I think all this has changed, the newly design SoundDock Portable has the best set of features you can find on any set of speakers for the iPod.

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I found the coolest website with skins for you iPhone, GelaSkins don’t only sell stickers for your iPhone but for you iPod and your MacBook. What attract me the most is that they have several artists selling their work, this makes the skins to be as unique as Mac users are. To check out what I’m talking about by yourself just click on the affiliate link below.

What I like the most about GelaSkins products is that they are easy to apply, durable and easy to remove too. If you wish to change your iPhone skin after awhile you can easily peel off the current skin and apply another with out leaving traces of glue or damaging your iPhone. The same apply to other products like the MacBook, iPod or even your Motorola RAZR.

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Today is when NBC and company decided to launch their so long waited service Hulu, while Hulu.com is still in private beta, you can take a peek at their content and their content format at video.aol.com. With this approach, the networks are trying to compete directly with other video sites, particularly iTunes. While is not being as explicit as some think, it is clear now that their negative to renew their agreements with Apple is because they expect to get a better return from this new site.

As of now, I don’t know if this is a good idea for them, but don’t blame them for trying. I sign up for the beta this morning and expect to receive an invitation soon, in the meantime I went to the AOL site and notice that they have lots of show available for anyone to see. I was not impressed with the quality, and the fact that they are not available to see on the go is a turn down for me.

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PSP slim is out, the cool thing is that is selling in bundles with a game which makes it an attractive purchase. Stores like Target and Electronic Boutique are carrying the new slimmer PSP at $199, bundled with either Star Wars Battlefront or Daxter, other bundles may become available in the future. The new PSP Slim claim to be 33% lighter and 19% slimmer, it shares much of the specs from previews versions and it comes in 3 different colors.

I own the previews version of the PSP and I’m very happy with the product, the new PSP claims to be faster and have better screen performance. If you travel a lot and have the opportunity of enjoying your media while you travel, the PSP is a great alternative to a Video iPod or even a portable DVD player. The beautiful TFT 4.3 inch display has a resolution of 480 x 272 pix, capable of showing over 16 million colors.

While the PSP is a great consumer device, it doesn’t have the popularity it deserves. With the use of UMD (Universal Media Disc) is not suitable for children, the disc are considered fragile and/or easy to break or damage. Meanwhile, its competitor the Nintendo DS has sold millions of units, the PSP is often advertised for teenagers or young adults.

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What was running around as rumors became a reality, Microsoft has released photos and specs for their new Zune lineup that will be release sometime in November 2007. The new Zune lineup has an 80GB model called the Zune 80, and two flash models sporting 4 and 8GB of storage. The company gave no indication of discontinuing the 30GB, 1st generation model, instead the new updated UI (user interface) will be added via update software to the old Zune.

If you ask me Microsoft is up to something, the new UI and software upgrade add some interesting features that are worth discussing. This first one is the integration with Windows Media Player, now you can transfer your media content from your computer to your Zune effortlessly. What’s better the new Zune software is compatible with h.264 and MPEG4 codecs, you don’t need to convert your media files to WMV.

Some good news to Podcasters is that the new Zune software includes support for podcasts, you won’t be able to update your podcasts over WiFi, but you can share them with other Zune players. Talking about sharing, Microsoft changed the rules for sharing music a bit. Now instead of getting the three days, three plays restrictions you only get the three plays restriction, not sure if this means something to Zune owners.

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I played with the iPod touch for a week, during that time I spent over 10 hours on the web. I tested different websites like Google, Google Reader, Gmail, Soonr.com, Popcat.com, etc. I surfed and tested Twitter, MySpace, among other sites. Between yesterday and today I’ve been doing the same thing with the iPhone and found out that Safari behaves differently on each device.

Lets clarify something, I understand that both devices are different, one is a phone and the other one is an iPod. One would think that they have the same applications installed, but even if they are the same they don’t behave alike. For the most part the Safari on the iPhone behaves like a mobile device, on the other hand it behaves like a regular browser on the iPod.

Whenever I surfed to Google the iPod would bring my iGoogle site the same way I see it on my computer. In the iPhone it goes directly to the mobile version of Google.com. I guess that since the iPhone could be working off the Edge network and the iPod touch not, this is a good thing since the iPhone would seem sluggish opening a full version of a website off of the Edge network.

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I gave up, there were too many missing features, and while I was happy with the device itself, I felt that I was missing a lot. Today I went to my Apple store where the employee that helped me was extremely courteous, she took back my iPod touch asked me if everything was ok with the unit, which it was, and sold me an iPhone.

What made me decide was a recent visit to a friend of mine, he is not technology savvy so the iPod touch was the best thing he has ever seen. As I started giving a demo, I felt like I was letting his expectations down but in reality it was me the one not happy with it. I try to show him a video, rapidly noticing that the full experience needed audio. I was not letting him use my earbuds, either there is no speaker on the iPod touch.

I have him in my contacts, when he saw his picture he didn’t like it. Of course I was missing a camera to fix hit contact photo on the spot. I show them pictures and while the slide show was running there was no music on it. As a Mac geek that I an, I felt that I was not really enjoying what the iPod the way I could enjoy an iPhone.

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