Tag: free
Opinion: why Napster can't fail with their new DRM-free venture
Katherine Hannaford writes…
Can we call 2008 the heady days of digital music yet – can we? Can we? Sure, 2007 had its fair share of digital movers and shakers, with Radiohead pioneering the music release formula, but with today’s news that Napster is going DRM-free, surely things can only pick up in speed?
Beginning life as an illegal P2P service in 1999, it was acquired by Roxio in 2003 after numerous legal battles with the RIAA and, err, Metallica. I’m sure there’s a generation of kids who only know of Metallica as those baddies who shut down their favourite way of downloading 50 Cent.
Napster’s move to go DRM-free, and offer MP3 file formats encoded at 256kbps, has led a lot of people to draw even more comparisons between them and iTunes and Amazon. However, there’s no ignoring the facts, that iTunes currently has just EMI feeding them DRM-free tracks, and whilst Amazon, like Napster, has support from the four big record labels, it doesn’t have anywhere near the size of catalogue as Napster, who can also boast all the indie labels in addition to EMI, Warner, Sony BMG and Universal…
Nokia's "highest production value" N-Gage game Reset Generation will be given away for free on PC
OK, so Nokia’s making a game called Reset Generation for its N-Gage platform. It used to be called “Project White Rock”, but now it has a proper name. And very nice it sounds too. Well done to all at the focus group.
Reset Generation is going to be the big-budget, blockbuster game that has everyone FLOCKING to N-Gage, apparently – but it’s also going to be given away for free on PC. It sounds like Nokia has gone INSANE.
This confusing and topsy-turvy distribution system…
Jaxtr – sort of like a web-based Skype, now with free international texts
Jaxtr totally bypasses your local operator so you’re not at the mercy of your mobile or landline provider any more. Sign up, register your handset, and it’s hello to extremely cheap – and in some cases free – global telephony options.
Jaxtr’s been going since 2007 and has just granted all of its users the chance to send £FREE international text messages. Excitingly, this is one scheme that we’re allowed to join…
Is the free mobile video service Vtap worth the two minutes it takes to download?
The above photos were taken of my HTC Touch mobile, running a new service called Vtap, which offers video content direct to your mobile handset.
As you can see, the results on my phone were particularly unattractive to say the least, but that could be due to the GPRS internet connectivity and the actual handset’s performance. Downloading the small file was relatively painless, however navigating around the Vtap site proved much more challenging. With the offered videos on the home page being decidedly unappealing, you have to really search for anything that interests you…
Adobe pleases poor designers and bloggers with the release of the free Photoshop Express
As we wrote about last September, Adobe has been working on a not-so-secret online version of their Photoshop program for a fair amount of time. Thankfully, they’ve saved us from the trauma of having to use SnipShot when in dire need of a free online image editing program, by releasing Adobe Photoshop Express today.
Having fooled around with it for the better part of today, I must say I’m hugely impressed. In the above screenshot you can see I’ve used several effects on poor Gates and Jobs, including ‘distort’, ‘pop color’ and ‘sharpen’, along with standards such as cropping and resizing. Flash 9 is the driving force behind it, which…
Get 1000 free Microsoft points (ie, £8.50) when you pre-order Lost Odyssey today
It’s been anticipated for quite a while, however as of tomorrow, the UK market will finally get its hands on the Xbox 360 game, Lost Odyssey.
If there’s one thing I recommend you do today, is head down to HMV or over to their website, and pre-order like a madman. HMV is offering an amazing deal for those who pre-order the Japanese RPG, with 1000 Microsoft Points to spend on your next Xbox Live Arcade download.
That’s a whole £8.50! If you pre-order ten of them at £39.99 each, then sell them all on eBay, you could make a killing, and ensure…
Daily Downtime – free games and quizzes for your mobile
A new mobile service has come out of its beta testing period this week – Daily Downtime.
Daily Downtime’s unique in the mobile industry, in that it’s offering you mobile content for free. Yes, FREE! Simply sign up with your mobile number and a few details on its site and it’ll install itself on your phone. Whenever you want to kill a bit of time, simply fire up the app and download that day’s bundle of new content.
Last.fm launches free on-demand music platform in UK
Last.fm has today announced that it is the first website to offer free, global, on-demand access to the largest licensed catalogue of music from Universal Music Group, Sony/BMG, Warner and EMI, plus CD Baby, IODA, the Orchard, Naxos and more than 150,000 independent labels and artists.
The service is ad supported, which means that they can implement the second part of their master plan: paying unsigned artists each time one of their tracks is played on the Last.fm service.
Playyoo – free homebrew games for your mobile
Playyoo is a new game creating and sharing site, where you can play mobile games for free – and game makers can upload their stuff for the world to see.
What’s in it for them is MONEY – all of the home made games uploaded to the site are entered into a prize draw, with $10,000 going to the best game.
Liveblog: Wired's Chris Anderson explains his new 'Free' theory
Exciting stuff at Nokia World, with Wired head honcho Chris Anderson taking to the stage for his keynote, entitled ‘Free’. It’s his new Big Idea following up the long tail, and he’s giving us a preview of it, in advance of a book due out next year. Liveblog follows, in chronological order.
