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Zune — $249.99 On Nov. 14
Cubricon writes, "As expected, Microsoft has dropped their price on the Zune in response to Apple's recent iPod updates. Ars Technica has an article that discusses the Zune's use of Microsoft's prepaid 'points' system for songs. Will the masses notice the difference between an iPod and a Zune? Will they want the FM and wireless capabilities?" The Zune lists for $0.99 more than the comparable iPod and songs from the Zune Marketplace will cost just under $0.99.
Seriously, what's the deal with people hating FM radio? I spend my whole day at work listening to BBC Radio 1. Sure, their daytime playlist is quite limited, but they do play some new music in the evenings, but I mainly tune in for the DJs. If anyone in the US has Sirius(?), tune into Radio 1 and give Chris Moyles a listen.
Summation 2
Actually, the FM radio band is abslutely the worst choice for an emergency broadcast. The range of FM is short and the radio waves don't bounce off the ionosphere. If there's some kind of a catastrophic event, there's a very good chance that local FM transmitter will be affected by it as well. SW and AM are much better since their waves bounce off the ionosphere and are long range.
Also, relying on Zune for emergency signal is silly (and I'm being nice) since it has a short battery life and no AM/SW bands. Also, what will you listen to after 5hrs have passed?!
If you want an emergency radio, get one with three bands and get one that has a hand crank.
Because songs aren't bought using money. You use money to buy Microsoft Points, or something with a similarly retarded name, and then use those points to buy songs. The current price is a buck for 80 points, and songs cost 79 points. So each point costs 1.25 cents, and 79 points works out to 98.75 cents. Due to rounding, if you buy 1 or 2 songs you pay the same as in ITMS, and past that you pay a very small amount less (if you buy 100 songs you save a whole quarter).
A bit of Slashdot antiquity.
http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23/ 1816257
The Braying and Neighing of Barnyard Animals Follows.
they sold over a million units before adding windows, so yes it was a success under those conditions.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on