Plugged And Unplugged

After three days of lines, sore feet and a crushing mass of rage-inducing humanity, my return from the international Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas is invariably greeted with one question:"What's the coolest thing you saw?"  This year, it came from a small, three-person company. t's called Jook, and it has developed a chip that can be cheaply added to any MP3 player accessory -- likely headphones -- that when plugged into the device will broadcast music played on the device to other Jook-enabled users. (Billboard)

Music industry urged to drop download prices

The music industry needs to drastically cut the price it charges for downloads if it wants to survive the Internet revolution, according to CEO of one of the world's most successful independent labels. Terry McBride, CEO of the Nettwerk Music Group, which manages such best-selling acts as Avril Lavigne, Barenaked Ladies and Dido, told the CES conference today that the music industry needs to "let go it's control and let consumers own their music" in order to survive. (Cnet)

ATT and Other I.S.P.’s May Be Getting Ready to Filter

At a small panel discussion about digital piracy at NBC’s booth on the Consumer Electronics Show floor, representatives from NBC, Microsoft, several digital filtering companies and the telecom giant ATT said the time was right to start filtering for copyrighted content at the network level. “What we are already doing to address piracy hasn’t been working. There’s no secret there,” said James Cicconi, senior vice president, external & legal affairs for ATT. (NY Times)

MusicIP Gets Wordy, Brokers LyricFind Partnership

Lyrics have always been integral to the music listening experience, yet homegrown sites have dominated the landscape since the 90s. Now, bigger players are getting into the game, including Gracenote, Yahoo, and RealNetworks. The latest deal involves music intelligence and discovery provider MusicIP, which has now brokered a partnership with LyricFind. (Digital Music News)

Last.FM’s Scrobbler Moves To Logitech Hardware

The world’s largest (and my favorite) music social network, Last.FM, has officially partnered with Logitech, whose Squeezebox and Squeezebox Duet network music systems will now scrobble the tracks you’ve been listening. The Last.FM's scrobbler is a software which detects the tracks you’re listening to (it uses plugins for various types of music listening software, such as Winamp, foobar, Windows Media Player etc), and adds them to your online profile on Last.FM. (Mashable)

TiVo launches online video recording service

DVR manufacturer TiVo is extending the capability of its products through a software upgrade to allow subscribers to download online video to their set-top boxes. Marketed as TiVoToGo, the service will be a free upgrade for subscribers who own standalone Series2 TiVo DVRs. However, one drawback is that it will not work for subscribers that own DirecTV-TiVo satellite boxes. (Strategyeye)

Philips partners with Rhapsody music service

Philips and RealNetworks will offer a unified music download service to home audio systems as well as portable music players from a single provider, filling what they argue is a gap in the market. The two companies plan to launch the Rhapsody service for Philips devices in North America around the end of the first quarter, executives said at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. (Reuters)

Microsoft Gains Traction In Media Devices

Just last week, Microsoft apologized for persistent glitches in its Xbox Live video-on-demand service. It took $1 billion in charges in its 2007 fourth fiscal quarter to cover warranty expenses stemming from a widespread hardware malfunction in the Xbox 360 game console. Those events left many of the company’s detractors positively aglow in schadenfreude. But Microsoft’s entertainment and devices division, which includes the Xbox, the Zune and other media platforms, is doing a lot better than those critics might think. (Forbes)

US mobile TV standards fight

US TV broadcasters are gearing up to launch mobile TV services that will be beamed directly to mobile phone and other handheld portable electronics devices next year, by-passing mobile network operators. But their efforts may be stymied by another standards battle in prospect between LG Electronics and Samsung, rival Korean electronics giants, which have developed competing technology platforms, and by US mobile carriers, which tightly control the handset market. (Financial Times)

MusicGiants Launches VideoGiants with Films from Paramount Pictures

MusicGiants announced that they have entered into a distribution deal with Paramount Pictures Digital Entertainment to distribute motion picture films from the Paramount library through their new VideoGiants home theater digital content delivery platform. The MusicGiants Download Media store is already being built into most of the media servers for the high-end home theater industry. (PR)

Analysis: Looks like Blu-ray Finally Have Won the High Def War

It looks like this year’s Consumer Electronics Show might be remembered for Sony’s (NYSE: SNE) Blu-ray disc winning the high def disc format war. With Warner (NYSE: TWX) announcing that they are going exclusively with Blu-ray and rumors that Paramount will do the same, it might just be checkmate for Toshiba's HDDVD format. (Digital Media Wire)

Yankee Group Forecasts US Digital Music Revenue to Reach $5.34 Billion by 2012

Yankee Group anticipates that music industry revenue will begin to stabilize in the US, though at a lower level than previously seen. By the end of 2007, digital music revenue in the US grew to $1.98 billion, and will reach $5.34 billion by 2012. However, artists will increasingly keep the lion’s share of this revenue as record labels become marginalized. (PR)

Comcast to launch 4-min HD movie downloads

Superfast Internet speeds on Comcast Corp this year will allow subscribers to download a whole high-definition movie in just four minutes, as the largest U.S. cable operator hastens to fight off competition from phone and satellite companies. Comcast will also offer up to 1,000 HD movies and programs for downloads in another new service slated for 2008, in hopes of winning back customers and boosting its stock. (Reuters)

Jook Introduces Digital Music Standard with Social Net Features

Jook, developed by Jook Inc. - a subsidiary of Razer - is a technology standard that allows any portable music player to act like a personal radio station enabling everyone, regardless of their music player, to wirelessly transmit songs to people around them. For example, someone with an iPod™ can become a DJ and play music for someone sitting across from them on the subway listening to a Zune™. PR)

Bill Gates delivers predictions for next "digital decade" - CES

Delivering a final keynote speech at the 2008 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), exiting Microsoft chairman Bill Gates says the world is about to enter the next "digital decade" and predicts that the pervasive influence of computing on everyday life will increase exponentially in coming years, until all forms of media and entertainment will eventually be entirely "software-driven." (Strategic Eye)