Slashdot Mirror

An anonymous reader writes "From the guy who brought you CD syncing and the original music locker (both of which saw lawsuits from record labels) comes the latest invention to rock the music world: a real-time radio search engine. 1000s of worldwide stations are indexed in real-time and users can search and play most any popular artist — even the digital holdouts (Tool, Led Zeppelin, etc) that are unavailable on paid services like Spotify. (Kinda wonder why Google hasn't done this.) Link on main page points to an API for those who want to build mobile and web services."

theodp writes "Over at TechCrunch, Vivek Wadhwa offers some don't-be-a-fool-stay-in-school advice to students that sounds a bit like an old-school Mr. T PSA. TechCrunch CEO Michael Arrington's questioning of whether students need to get any degree or go to college at all may sound appealing — dropouts Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates did do alright for themselves — but Wadhwa gives some good reasons why you should probably take the school-is-for-chumps argument with a grain of salt. 'The harsh reality,' warns Wadhwa, is that for every Zuckerberg, there are a thousand who drop out of college and fail,' and many big companies won't even consider hiring you for that fallback job without a degree. And, believe it or not, you can still become a tech billionaire later in life even if you're cursed with a PhD." Tech entrepreneur Michael Robertson approaches this question slightly differently; here's an analysis he made a few years ago, with the conclusion that the college investment pays off only about half the time.

An anonymous reader writes "Net speculation has swirled about the DOJ being stacked with media company-friendly attorneys who will throw the consumer under the bus, but in one of the first rulings, the Solicitor General defended network DVRs, mentioned cloud computing and a music locker — which has to be a first for a Supreme Court brief. Michael Robertson chronicles the latest developments and you can read the brief for yourself."

An anonymous reader writes in with a CNet story about the record label-backed music company Lala, which claims to have invented "Network DRM." Lala has filed for a patent on moving DRM from a file wrapper, like Windows Media and FairPlay, to the server. Digital music veteran Michael Robertson has quotes from the patent application on his blog. (Here is the application.) Lala describes an invention that monitors every access, allows only authorized devices (so far there are none), blocks downloads, and can revoke content at the labels' request.

An anonymous reader writes "What's worse than a padlocking every song so that they will only play on certain devices? How about selling (renting) you songs that work on no devices? Astonishingly, this is what the music industry thinks we need. Warner Music is spending $20 million to back Lala, a startup devising a service to convince people to 'buy' 'web songs' for 10 cents each; these are then kept for safekeeping only by Lala with no download privileges. Industry insider Michael Robertson leaks the facts on this scheme, along with a seekrit URL so you can try it out."

An anonymous reader writes "In an obituary for AnywhereCD, which closes in one week, founder (and MP3.com founder) Michael Robertson chronicles how at least one record label wanted him to embed credit card numbers of buyers into songs. A fascinating story about how at least some of the labels still don't get it and why AnywhereCD is about to be buried."

BigRedFed writes "Michael Robertson, of mp3.com fame, Linspire.com fame (or infamy depending on your view point) and more recently, ajax13.com has released another interesting piece of web software. ajaxWindows they are calling it and it's an almost full fledged web based OS that you can use to transport around your documents and mp3 collection to any device with an internet connection and a full web-browser."

prostoalex writes "Michael Robertson (of MP3.com, Linspire, SIPPhone, GizmoProject and MP3Tunes.com fame) is launching a Web-only competitor to Microsoft Office by creating a suite of applications replicating Microsoft Office look and feel. From the posting: "But ajaxWrite is just the start. We have a library of applications we have been working on to replace most of the standard PC software titles. Every week we will launch a new sophisticated program on Wednesday at 12:00 PST on ajaxlaunch.com. These programs will push the boundaries of what people believe is possible today with web-delivered software. These programs look and operate much like their traditional software cousins, but are cross-platform, loaded dynamically, and are available to users at no charge. I'm convinced if you try a few of these products you will understand how the software business will fundamentally change." ajaxWrite is the first launched product."

prostoalex writes "Michael Robertson (of MP3.com, Linspire, SIPPhone, GizmoProject and MP3Tunes.com fame) is launching a Web-only competitor to Microsoft Office by creating a suite of applications replicating Microsoft Office look and feel. From the posting: "But ajaxWrite is just the start. We have a library of applications we have been working on to replace most of the standard PC software titles. Every week we will launch a new sophisticated program on Wednesday at 12:00 PST on ajaxlaunch.com. These programs will push the boundaries of what people believe is possible today with web-delivered software. These programs look and operate much like their traditional software cousins, but are cross-platform, loaded dynamically, and are available to users at no charge. I'm convinced if you try a few of these products you will understand how the software business will fundamentally change." ajaxWrite is the first launched product."

GuNgA-DiN writes "Jon Lech Johansen, the 21-year-old Norwegian media hacker nicknamed DVD Jon, is moving to San Diego to work for maverick tech entrepreneur Michael Robertson in what can only be described as the most portentous team-up since Butch met Sundance. "I have no idea what I'll be doing, but I know it will be reverse engineering, and I'm sure it will be interesting," Johansen told Wired News during a Friday stopover in San Francisco. Robertson's website reveals that they are working on a new project and all he said was: "Oboe is the code name for a significant new project we have underway that will launch before the end of the year. It's as momentous as anything I've ever done in my technical career, but I won't say more since I despise vaporware. I know this project will be even better with Jon on board.""