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Terrible may have been an extreme (although not entirely incorrect) choice of words, after looking for a source. The exact quote is:

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The third and newest of the methods is the Bit Torrent support that has been added to the newest of the Shareaza betas. Bram Cohen the creator of BitTorrent told Slyck that in his view Shareaza's implementation was not perfect. Based on comments he had read he said that "the shareaza author doesn't understand BitTorrent's tit-for-tat algorithms at all" and therefore "the client is unlikely to be able to offer as good performance as the official one." He also slammed Shareaza for not speaking to him saying no one ever told him anything about Shareaza's support.
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from mp3newswire.

Did you actually RTFA? You know, the one that shows a picture of the product we're discussing? The product that actually does look like a Sega Game Gear.....?

I am from India, as well.
But I personally feel that $10 is not such a high premium for an innovation like this, though not much of a functional value. And considering that such big companies(like HP, IBM,etc) don't usually have countries like India in their minds when they bring such innovations in the market, it is still an affordable nift.

Considering that, inspite of cheap 2GB mini harddrives from toshiba, IBM continues to charge a royal $360(or whatever is the high price of it now) for the 1GB Microdrive.

You don't think that $150,000 per song and jail time is excessive? That is the amount the RIAA threatened to sue for against file sharers last year to force settlements.

Pirates are not trying to put DRM on every computer created. The media industry is, and they're buying their laws any way they can.

Piracy is not the worst thing to happen to computing. It's the worst thing to happen to the Music Industry. (Which is only an excuse due to the recession. Our company got hit by the recession and we had to fire 100 people. Too bad we couldn't blame it on pirates)

You are siding with the same people who fought tooth and nail to outlaw the VCR. The Xerox Machine. The Printing Press.

Read up on some outrageous fines.

Then, in the summer of 2002, Apple dropped the price of the 5Gb model to $299, made the 10Gb model $399 and introduced a 20 Gb model for $499.

At this point, the iPod was selling like hotcakes even though its average price was $400.

Now they've introduced the smaller, lighter, COLORED (oooh!) 4Gb iPod mini for $50 less than the older 5Gb iPod.

These are going to sell great now, but just wait until Apple drops the price on the iPod mini. I predict that we'll see them at $199 by this summer, and then EVERYONE will have one, including me.

Oops, wrong link - instead see RIAA statistics. Fact or fiction? and here.

And this auction says it weighs 10 oz

here is my source for the dimensions.

I looked again on google and according to this site it is 10 oz. I guess the second is correct.

The dimensions of the Neuros are 5.3" x 3.1" x 1.3", compared to the dimensions of the new iPod at 4.1" x 2.4"x 0.62". With regard to weight, the latest Apple sets the standard for a jukebox portable at a mere 5.6 ounces, shedding nearly an ounce from the original. The Neuros, on the other hand, weighs in at a heavy 9.4 ounces, more than even the Rio Riot (8.8 ounces) and the Archos Multimedia Jukebox (9 ounces).

Svelte dimensions and low weight is what propelled the iPod portable to an over 25% share of the digital music market. The Neuros has features that could make it an iPod killer, but it falls short in the one area that may count most: size. It felt like a brick in our pocket, with squared, pointed edges that poked our legs. Overall, it's the most disappointing aspect of an otherwise impressive portable, but one that can be corrected. Since the faceplate of the Neuros alone is sufficiently small and light, one would have expected that Digital Innovations would have created a smaller backpack using the same Toshiba drive found in the iPod. We hope it's something they consider for upcoming models.

I know it's not a justification, but when I read this, which was posted on slashdot on thursday, I decided the RIAA can stuff themselves, everyone copy what (s)he wants. The RIAA members and their lawyers should all die a painful death. Only then will the world be ready for a fair trade.

PS : I buy, on average, 1 CD/year, but I don't copy music. I just listen to the radio a lot (I live in a country where good and varied music can be heard on the radio). So don't go calling me a pirate ('cause my eyepatch is just in the laundry and my parrot has a case of the runs, so I don't dare put him on my shoulder. Try not to think of the coincidence of my parrot having the runs and my eyepatch being in the laundry - you don't want to go there).

I haven't seen anyone mention the Archos AV320 Mediabox.

It has a 3.8" screen, plays MPEG4, MP3's, and records from any video source (encodes into MPEG4), including NTSC and PAL video.

Feeling Screwed by the record labels? Claim your settlement from the record industry price fixing case.

If we consumers can sue the record industry, why shouldn't they just sue us right back?

Now where's my $5?

Could you provide links to substantiate your claims of increased music sales linked to P2P piracy? Thanks.

Here's a start

More on the Ipso-Reid study covered here. The original study isn't available through their website, unless you look a lot harder than I did.

Here's more on the Jupiter study

Still more

Liebowitz writes about it, but his only purpose was to conclude that filesharing doesn't hurt the music business.

ZDNet reports on what is probably the same Jupiter study

This article sits right in the middle of the issue, but certainly hints at an Odyssey study supporting my point.

Here's a study about studies

This came out during the height of the Metallica fight against Napster

You can google for more if you're not satisfied with these. :)

Now if there was a CF based player...

Uhhh...

1. Daisy Diva
2. assorted I-Jam players
3. i-Play Moveman
4. Merit MP2000
5. Precom DC-530 (Okay so it's really a camera)
6. Simply Sonic SMP-200D
7. RCA Lyra

Did you even try looking on compactflash.org?

Now if there was a CF based player...

Uhhh...

1. Daisy Diva
2. assorted I-Jam players
3. i-Play Moveman
4. Merit MP2000
5. Precom DC-530 (Okay so it's really a camera)
6. Simply Sonic SMP-200D
7. RCA Lyra

Did you even try looking on compactflash.org?

you people were crying for them to go after the individual pirates, instead of the technology that facilitates the piracy.

the irony in your statements (if you look hard enough, you can see it too!) is that you post as anonymous cowherd.

and enough talk of hard earned cash. the money you spend on a cd doesnt go to the guy earning his keep. it goes to the music Cartel, aka the RIAA.

check out this article

Macintosh sales, in absolute terms, have declined since the peak under Michael Spindler. Apple was selling 4 million units a year in 1994/1995/1996; since then it's been selling roughly 3 million units a year, with one outlier in the maximum year of the Internet bubble (2000).

Don't forget to add ipod sales, close to 4 million units in 2002. It's the thing that has Apple revenues higher than anytime in the last 4 years or so.. If sales units are down and revenue is up, great. Me oh my, revenue up in a stagnant IT market more than it was in the "buble" market? Yep, this is the Apple rebound.

Expect it to eat M$'s lunch. Between free software for routine office work and xterminals, Apple for digital media and xterm work, where is Microsoft's nitch? The M$ damb was breached years ago, there's little to hold it up besides DRM and no one wants that. Where you going to go when the levee breaks? Flush goes M$.

You must have written this article.

This whole RIAA/Verizon stint has been RIAA wanting to find the real people so it can file claims against them.

That is NOT the main issue with this case. The RIAA wants to get this user information without having to go to the courts first, they want to bypass the checks and balances of the court system via an interpetation of the DMCA and go directly to the ISP's and demand the information. This ability can have a very broad negative effect on any internet provider. With the recent history of the RIAA f**kups regarding file names and what is actually in those files, I would say this is a VERY bad trend. There is nothing that prevents me from creating hundreds of files with names to fool them, once noticed by the RIAA, I will have to spend my time and resources to prove that their system of determining illegal files is 100% garbage.

This article came out almost exactly a year ago and has an interesting quote regarding all the devices, including this one, that license MPEG4:

"The MPEG-4 compression has run into controversy regarding high licensing fees. So significant were the fees that Apple actually delayed the release of Quicktime 6 in protest. How this will all play out with users over time is not known yet, but unless this fee issue is addressed it may dampen adoption by users."

Also, the link above links to this article regarding the entire controversy. (It's kind of funny because the first article is dated before the second one, so obviously that article was modified to include the link after being first published without the date changing.)

I wonder if they've managed to knock down the price or if the license is a significant portion of the cost of the device?

• Linux users are threatened by SCO. Probably an empty threat.
  
• Windows users are threatened by the BSA. Usually an empty threat, but not always.
  
• Almost everyone with a Web site is threatened by SBC. Definitely not an empty threat, even if SBC ultimately loses in court (as it should).
  
• The RIAA is suing ISPs to get users' private information, and the MPAA wants to hack into every computer to check for copyrighted material. The most serious threat of all, as their lobbyists mean they'll probably win.
  

Other cases that were handled by Judge Willson hint to the fact that he is one of the few liberal and pro-Internet (as in "in favor of freedom of individual Internet users") in the country.

CNET and MP3newswire.net also have stories on this.

MP3newswire.net also offers an older, but nicely explained article on how this technology works using only two headphones to replace six speakers.

Um, no. The article doesn't explain how to "replace six speakers" with two. It describes a WinAmp plugin for "virtual speaker placement", whatever that is.

Personally, I've found that all these "virtual" thingies are market-droid speak, snake oil at their very best. If your recording has two channels (assuming no multichannel encoding), a correctly configured stereo pair is the best option.

Real multichannel records may give you true 3D sound, if you have the decoder, amp, and speakers to do it. However, the linked article describes an "improvement" to a system that's ill-suited for high fidelity playback in the first place.

Why anybody would want to distort the sound even further from what it is after MP3/Ogg encoding, since you can get better results with a decent amp (budget models from NAD are very nice), and a pair of high quality speakers.

It is "Mike's Protocol", as mentioned at the interview linked to from the previous post.

Well, ShareReactor works just as well with Overnet, since the peer-to-peer communication part is identical and the links work just the same, partial file sharing, blah blah blah. Also, see here. Future versions of eMule may support Overnet as well as server-based communication. The lastest eDonkey does. (The 'hybrid'.)

Anyway, ed2k servers are pretty easy to set up, and it's not like they all live in the basement of the ed2k Corporation, Inc, a la Napster.

--grendel drago

Not just Miguel. I was intrigued by Ian Clark's latest project, Locutus, until I read that it was built on the .NET framework. Knowing that, I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole.

Unless, of course, Newswire is hosting content I'm interested in accessing. Then there's a very good point to using their bandwidth.

And the RIAA has had excellent results in the courts. They saw the destruction of Napster by the California legal system. They have left Madster (formerly Aimster) bloodied on the ropes and about to be called for a TKO and this month they won the right to sue Australian-based KaZaa in the US.

What has this won them so far? To be quite blunt, nothing. (Source)

Funny you should say that, because one of the members of the RIAA, Disney, has already done propaganda against P2P usage. The mp3 newswire and the newsforge have articles on it. The show is called the Proud Family and the particular episode spews the propaganda is called EZ-Jackster.

with this

Why is Slashdot posting tripe like Buffy's New Season when it could be posting real news... Such as:

2002-09-02 05:11:18 LotR: The Two Towers hits net months before release (articles,movies) (rejected)
In what has to be one of the startling security breaches in Hollywood to date, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers has hit the net FOUR MONTHS ahead of it's intended release in theaters according to the Drudge Report, though there is still some question of what was actually obtained and how. If this can be confirmed or denied, it's here on Slashdot.

Or...

2002-09-02 05:20:54 RIAA site hit yet again by disgruntled hackers (articles,music) (rejected)
The RIAA has been hit for a third time in a one month's span as file-sharing fans hacked the RIAA hompage and altered it's content over the holiday weekend. Previous attacks include a DoS assault and a similar alteration. The story and alterations can be found at the MP3 Newswire.

Sure, I'm a tiny bit chapped, but the main portion of my fustration has been replaced with the need to prove how big of hacks and chumps these editors are. Even that -1 I'll be getting doesn't make any difference. I'll tell you when my karma dips below Excellent, kay?

A Third Hack on RIAA Site

Wonder if RIAA still thinks a law allowing legal cracking/DoSing is a Good Idea?

This player is one of the best CD-ROM based mp3 players out there. Third generation and it doesn't plug into your computer at all. Just burn mp3s to the CD and then play them. No way you can go wrong with that! It even has 400 second skip protection and the batteries last forever. Here's a link for a review. http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/2001/voltsp250. html

It looks nice and all, but man, a beautiful, DRM-free iPod for Windows still looks more attractive. (more info at mp3newswire.net).

.. between this and nomad v2? Basically it's got a firewire port and lithium ion batteries. Some more details available here.

Hmm... It might be cheaper, but...

PJRC Dension

Look at them again...

PJRC Dension

Which one would you rather put in your CAR?

Hmm... It might be cheaper, but...

PJRC Dension

Look at them again...

PJRC Dension

Which one would you rather put in your CAR?

Here is a review MP3 Newswire did on the Rio Receiver last August.

Catch this link. This article caught the possibility of all this a couple of days ago.

Kudos to MP3 Newswire who called this one three days ago.

As you can tell by reading the article, and as you certainly wouldn't be led to believe by reading CmdrTaco's summary, they are refusing to shut down in order to comply with a previous court order. This is more a case of conflicting orders in the judicial system than anything else.

See http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/2001/panasonicm p3.html

Here is a site with some more info on the SliMP3..
http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/2001/slimp3.htm l
It has a bit more detail on the unit and a picture of it working. Quite and impressive peice of hardware.

Stefanos is right, no silly copy protection on the Archos, you can upload ands Download all you want. Here is a review of that player that details the lack of SDMI security.

Here is another review on that unit.

I could swear that I saw one on /. a couple months ago, but the search comes up empty. So does google. Hmmm.. Are you sure that none of the new rios do it?

You could wade thru the annals of http://www.mp3newswire.net/, which violates the first rule of web design (include a #@%#$% search engine!!).

A commercial rack unit, this player is targeted for radio stations and the like. When you realize that 80GB can probably hold the entire active libraries of most stations...

MP3 Newswire just posted Beale Screamer's manifesto on its site. It's an interesting read.

There is already a lawsuit out there over this. IANAL but I would guess all they have to do is disclose that it can't be copied on the box and they are covered. If it's labeled and you still buy it then you know what you're buying.

Still, I hope this stuff gets cracked soon. I actually believe that people buy more CDs when they get the MP3 first. That's certainly true for me.

If you don't have anything nice to say, say it often.