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iPod Killers For the Holidays
An anonymous reader writes, "MP3 Newswire has an excellent rundown of 29 new digital portables for the upcoming season. From the article:
'We have run the iPod Killers for Christmas/Summer series since 2004. In that time we [have] reported on 149 portable players and NOT one iPod killer from the bunch. That said, [this time] we may actually have a couple of genuine challengers to Apple. This holiday season will see Microsoft pump tens-of-millions of dollars to hawk their new Zune portable, and SanDisk's 8GB e280 flash unit is compelling high-end users. Both can realistically grab double-digit market share from the iPod... Whether they do or not waits to be seen.' The article also makes a good case as to why the Sony PSP should be included in market figures for digital media portables."
For Christmas, I will be getting all of my relatives and friends Ubuntu installation and live CDs, via the Ubuntu ShipIt service. I'm going to wait until Ubuntu 6.10 is released, so that they can experience the latest software advances within the Linux and open source communities.
You probably think I'm a cheap fuck for giving them CDs that I get for free. But that's just part of the deal. The other part is that I will back up their old systems, install Ubuntu, and help them get started. It will no doubt be a difficult and time consuming undertaking, but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make for the safety of my friends' and relatives' computer systems, as well as for the entire open source community.
I hope Product RED is a hit this holiday season. Although it is only $10 an iPod it is a *sustainable* way for corporate America to help with the human emergency in Africa. 5000 people are dying every day from a totally treatable disease. That's like a 9/11 every day.
The antivirial drug treatment only costs about 40 cents to keep these people alive.