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Zune HD Unveiled, Set For Fall Release
Several readers have written to mention that Microsoft has confirmed and unveiled the Zune HD. It has a "3.3-inch, 480 x 272 OLED capacitive touchscreen display, built-in HD Radio receiver, HD output," and it makes use of multi-touch input. More details will be forthcoming at E3, including how the device interacts with Xbox Live. Reader johnjaydk notes a PCWorld article that asks whether the Zune HD will be capable of competing with the iPod Touch. Quoting: "... the real competition between the Zune HD and the iPod Touch will come down to software. The new Zune will be based on a custom version of Windows CE, while the iPod Touch runs on the already popular iPhone platform, for which thousands of applications are available."
Zunes are also finally coming to Europe as well, which marks the first time Microsoft has announced the US exclusivity on the Zune is being dropped. Understandably, the US press has perhaps overlooked this fact, but if you live here in Europe, it's possibly bigger news than the Zune HD being announced.
From TFA: "Supported 720p HD video files play on the device, downscaled to fit the screen at 480 x 272 - not HD resolution. Zune HD and AV Dock, and an HDTV (all sold separately) are required to view video at HD resolution" Seems like every single product these times has to have "HD" at the end, just like "2000", "Professional", etc, etc..., even if its missinforming...
No, OLED screens have been on devices for a while. Check out Cowon's sleak S9.
I bought an HD radio just to check out the technology. The cheapest one I could find was $80--quite a bit for a radio. But the quality is spectacular (HD AM sounds better than the best non-HD FM reception), and you get more stations and metadata.
I am surprised that his hasn't caught on more yet. I believe it is because the chips needed for HD radios are still expensive. I sure hope the Zune drives down implementation costs and helps bring HD radio to the masses. Listening to NPR as if I'm right in the station is a great experience.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Can you develop Zune software without Windows?
Very often, people confuse simple with simplistic. The nuance is lost on most. - Clement Mok
Part of the reason is that Ibiquity, the folks behind the HD radio standard, managed to get the FCC to approve a MANDATORY encryption key as a part of the standard. In other words, ALL HD radio traffic is encrypted with a key that you have to license from Ibiquity - full stop.
No matter if you can make your own decoder chip - you SHALL license the key from Ibiquity or you won't be able to decode ANY traffic.
And as a result, if you want to do something and Ibiquity doesn't want you to - you don't do it.
And Ibiquity doesn't want your spiffy new radio outputting any form of digital stream - no USB, no Firewire, no SPIDF, no Uncle Mikey.
So when Griffin wanted to have the RadioSharkHD stream the HD over USB to your computer - BZZZZT! Wrong answer.
www.eFax.com are spammers
So you need a digital certificate from Apple. Big deal. Once you get it ($99 developer fee - much cheaper than Visual Studio)
This is very different from what you've said in your original post up the thread:
You can develop iPhone/iTouch software and deploy it without any involvement by Apple. Just connect the computer with the application to your device.
You're also factually incorrect regarding the pricing. XNA Game Studio 3.0 (which is the VS edition that you'd use for Zune game development) is a free download, and you do not need to pay to run XNA games on Zune (Xbox is a different story, but we aren't talking about that here).