Author: Stuart Dredge
Vodafone to sell Nokia Music Store handsets, alongside its MusicStation deal
Earlier today, I wrote about Vodafone’s deal to launch Omnifone’s MusicStation service before Christmas, offering a £1.99-a-week subscription deal for unlimited music downloads. And I also suggested it would compete with Nokia’s own recently announced Nokia Music Store.
Nokia’s press office has been in touch and pointed out that the two music services won’t necessarily be direct competitors: “Vodafone UK have chosen to range the Nokia N81 and N95 8gig and these devices will be embedded with the Nokia Music Service and N-gage Games Service as well as Vodafone’s other service offerings.”
Limewire fraudster arrested for massive online thievery
That’s an official offence in the UK, y’know: ‘Massive Online Thievery’. Well, it should be. Usually it’s the sort of phrase used by the music industry to describe what happens on P2P file-sharing services like Limewire, but in this case, I’m talking about a bloke using Limewire to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from fellow users.
Lenovo Thinkpad Reserve: the luxury laptop for flange-loving lounge lizards
Lenovo has unveiled its Thinkpad Reserve Edition laptop, which is due to go on sale in a limited edition of 5,000 individually-numbered units, and cost $5,000 (around £2,461).
It comes with a hand-stitched leather case, complete with tapering “flanges” to keep spilled liquids away from the laptop’s innards. It also blocks Wi-Fi, so the laptop comes with an external antenna (this is a “feature” apparently, not an “annoyance”).
MySpace star Tila Tequila gets her own bisexual dating show on MTV
Wasn’t MySpace supposed to fuel a new breed of pop stars, turning their Web 2.0 popularity into platinum albums and taking over the charts? I’m sure that was the idea.
However, singer Tila Tequila is leveraging her huge MySpace popularity (two million friends and counting) to launch… a bisexual dating show on MTV. Well, I guess that qualifies as playing to your audience. Tila puts it best on her blog:
Sony unveils Rolly dancing music player: official videos
Rumours have been flying around about Sony’s Rolly player for weeks now, but this morning the company finally gave it a public unveiling. It’s a round player with built-in speaker, with 1GB of internal memory and a battery life of five hours.
Vodafone signs up MusicStation mobile music service to battle iTunes / Nokia Music Store
It’s safe to assume Vodafone HASN’T got the iPhone, then. The company has announced an exclusive deal with Omnifone to launch the latter’s MusicStation subscription service in the UK for Christmas.
It’ll cost £1.99 a week for unlimited music downloads, with the MusicStation application being preloaded on new Vodafone handsets, but also working with existing phones too (presumably you’ll be able to download the application from Vodafone’s Live portal).
Watch the Chemical Brothers fire lasers at Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square
It's a meeting of British icons: the Chems meet the Admiral at last night's Trafalgar Square gig in London. I swear I saw the grand old statue shake a leg too. The loose tech angle is, well, lasers (and the N73 used to record them).
Watch below, then click over the jump for some more over-excited mobile footage from the landmark gig.
Rumour: Sony Ericsson to unveil mobile gaming phone in February
Rumours that Sony Ericsson was planning to launch a PlayStationPhone have been bubbling for several months, fuelled by a recent interview in which the company confirmed that the idea was “something that we’re looking at”.
Well, it seems the looking may have gone well, because Mobile Entertainment is reporting that Sony Ericsson will unveil a dedicated gaming phone next February at the Mobile World Congress trade show.
Opinion: If only the iPod Touch had more storage capacity…
Stuart Dredge writes…
Following the excitement of Apple’s product launch this Wednesday, we’ve all had time to sit back, take stock, and… reach for our credit cards. As with any new Apple products, the iPod Touch, new Nanos and iPod Classic are being snapped up from the start, with the now-predictable flurry of unboxing images online as proof.
Once I’d finished all the posts for our big Apple roundup, I actually went as far as getting my wallet out and logging into the Apple Store, with a crazed look in my eye and an iPod Touch in my sights. But then I stopped.
Rumour: PS3 Home virtual world set for 11th October launch
Sony’s Home virtual world is still one of the more intriguing aspects of PS3, in that it could turn out to be a monster success or an utter flop. Which in my view makes it a brave and laudable thing to launch. Not that it’s launched yet: Home is still in beta.
However, Sony’s latest release dates announcement has Home pegged in for a “tentative” release date of 11th October on the PlayStation Network. The beta must have gone well, because that fits in with Sony’s original roadmap for its virtual world.
