Tag: Zune

Cause of mystery Zune shutdown revealed

30gb-zune.jpg

If you’re a Zune 30 owner – okay, chances are you’re not, but it’s interesting anyway – then you might have noticed that your Zune took a day’s holiday on 31st December. Microsoft has now issued an official response to the problem.

Turns out that the people who thought it might be something to do with the leap year were correct. The internal clock driver couldn’t work out the fact that there were 366 days in this year. The solution? Wait. Come midnight, US west coast time, all the Zune 30s started working perfectly again.

I can confirm that mine’s certainly back to normal. If you’re still having trouble, then try letting the device run out its battery, then charging it again and turning it on. It should then be fine. If not, drop us a line in the comments below.

30gb zune issues – official update (via comments on our original post)

Related posts: Zunes worldwide hit by mystery crash | New Zunephone Rumours

Duncan Geere MP3 players

BREAKING: Zunes worldwide hit by mystery crash

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This morning, I woke up and turned on my beloved Zune MP3 player. It got to the end of the loading bar, then just stopped. After the regular “hold back and up to reset” trick didn’t work, I did what any self-respecting citizen of the modern age would do, and turned to Google. Turns out there’s a lot of people with the same problem.

Across the internet, there’s a variety of threads on forums complaining that Zunes have frozen in exactly the same place, at exactly midnight PST. Given that we’re so close to the New Year, it’s likely to be a bug in the code, but I’m sure it won’t stop thousands of Mac fanboys across the land cooking up conspiracy theories along the lines of “Microsoft never expected to last this long in the market”.

More info, and a fix, as we get it.

Zune is frozen (via Google)

Related posts: New Zunephone Rumours | Zune 3.0 firmware – heavy on “the social”, light on the “useful in the UK”

Duncan Geere Digital Music, MP3 players

UPDATED: New Zunephone Rumours

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I know, I know, this one’s been round the block a few times, but given Microsoft’s dalliances with portable media players, and the fact that they own the most popular smartphone OS in Windows Mobile, it’s nearly a given that there’ll be some sort of Zunephone before long.

The rumours have resurfaced after the announcement that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will be delivering the keynote address – the spot which was previously filled by Bill Gates. Microsoft almost always unveils something at CES, and given that we know plenty about Windows 7 already, a Zunephone is on the cards.

Duncan Geere Mobile phones, MP3 players

NOISE GATE: Wi-Fi enabled MP3 Players

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From today, I’ll be contributing a new weekly column to the site every Tuesday afternoon about digital music. We’re calling it Noise Gate – which refers to an electronic device that cuts through the noise and crackle of an analog signal and delivers you a noise-free result. In the same way, I want to cut through all the crap surrounding digital music, mainly delivered by major labels and tech companies, and deliver you the pure, unadulterated facts. Think you can handle them?

Duncan Geere Digital Music, MP3 players, Noise Gate

Zunes for Democrats and Republicans

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Just to rub it in your face that you can’t get a Zune in the UK yet, and following the Joy Division Zune, the team at Microsoft behind the world’s third favourite MP3 player have launched some special-edition Zunes for “Green Delegates” at the USA’s Democratic national convention. These are delegations who “demonstrate the highest level of commitment to offsetting their carbon footprint from attending the convention”…

Duncan Geere MP3 players, Weirdness