Sony B100 Walkman is without Sonic Stage or ATRAC support

When Sony released it’s very first digital audio portable players (DAP) the only supported format was ATRAC and then ATRAC3, after miserable sales, Sony finally decided to support MP3 but that was many years too late. ATRAC3 is a superior audio format, allowing for lower bit-rates but still maintaining the same audio quality of higher bit-rate MP3 files.

ATRAC and ATRAC3 just did not catch on; it may have if their online store took off and if Sonic Stage wasn’t a bug ridden sorry excuse for an application. Sonic Stage isn’t really a media player, it’s a media manager and that’s it, it doesn’t multi-task like iTunes which can manage your photos, music, movies, streaming audio and store purchases. I like multi-tasking applications; I do not like limited programs like Sonic Stage.

For all intents and purposes, Sonic Stage and ATRAC3 were a failure. The one complaint about Sony’s digital audio products is they never supported drag and drop file transfers but that is about to change according to Thomas Ricker of Engadget and ATRACLife.

Sony is preparing to release a new MP3 player that does away with both Sonic Stage and ATRAC support. All I can say is “about time.” The B100 series of players will be available in 1GB to 4GB capacities with or without FM tuners and have small OLED displays. Supported formats include non-DRM WMA, AAC and MP3. Sonic Stage will not be required for file transfers; it’s fully drag and drop compliant. If you have a large collection of ATRAC files then well, don’t buy this model, I’m not going to feel bad for you.

The reason the AAC format took off in Apple’s iTunes store is because well, it works and Sony’s… didn’t. That’s just how it is. AAC is superior to MP3 but not to ATRAC3 it’s really a shame because I do like how ATRAC3 files sound but I’m certainly glad I didn’t convert my library.

I’d probably take a B100 over an iPod Shuffle just to get the advantage of a display. It’s too bad iTunes only works with iPods, it’d be awesome if any player could be used with iTunes, really awesome.

With a little luck all of Sony’s future products in the DAP line will also do without ATRAC and Sonic Stage support.

Acer recalls 27,000 notebook batteries

The Acer America Corporation and US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) have announced a voluntary recall of approximately 27,000 notebook computer batteries. Those batteries eligible for the free replacement program are the rechargeable lithium ion batteries containing battery cells manufactured by Sony Energy Devices Corporation.

As announced previously by the CPSC, there have been 16 reports of notebook batteries overheating. These reports were associated with earlier recalls by other notebook computer manufacturers of batteries containing these Sony cells.

An Acer spokesman said the company has received no reports of incidents and found no technical issues after months of testing and investigation. The decision to recall the units was made out of an abundance of caution, he said.

When asked why Acer had announced its recall months after its competitors had announced theirs, an Acer spokesman said that the company had been working with the CPSC and Sony since the recall was announced.

“All parties felt it was better to be safe than sorry,” the Acer spokesman said, acknowledging that it took the company months to come to that decision.

Last year, Dell, Apple, Lenovo, Toshiba and other PC makers were forced to recall notebooks with batteries made by Sony after it came to light that a flaw in Sony’s manufacturing process could lead to short circuits, sparks or fire.

The affected Acer models were sold in the U.S. and Canada from May 2004 through November 2006 for between $500 and $1,500, the company said.

The laptops possibly containing the recalled batteries were the TravelMate series with 4-digit model numbers beginning with 242, 320, 321, 330, 422, 467, 561, C20, and the Aspire series beginning with model numbers 556, 560, 567, 930, 941, 980.

Acer advises customers to stop using these recalled batteries immediately and contact Acer to receive a free replacement battery. In the meantime, customers may continue to use their notebook PCs by turning off the system, removing the battery, and powering the system via AC adapter and power cord, until the replacement battery is received.

Watch out gringos, MySpace goes Spanish

MySpace has announced the beta launch of “MySpace en Español“, a new Spanish-language version of MySpace for US-based Hispanics. MySpace also revealed a new pan-regional site in Spanish for Latin American residents, as well as further development plans for localized communities in Mexico and Brazil.

“We’re moving rapidly to build communities that reflect and respect the lifestyles of our diverse members,” said Travis Katz, Senior Vice President and General Manager of MySpace International.

“MySpace en Español opens the community even wider, giving our Hispanic members the choice to share their experiences, connect with family members, and plan their social lives in either Spanish or English. We look forward to getting their feedback as we build out these new cultural communities.”

MySpace en Español will spotlight content, programming, artists and users relevant to the US Hispanic MySpace population, as well as a Spanish language version of the MySpace instant messaging client.

The company also announced today, MySpace Latinoamérica, a pan-regional site in Spanish for Latin American users. More than 150 million residents from across Latin America can now access MySpace in Spanish through the new localized community.

Across Latin America, MySpace will be working with local teams to develop relevant programming and unique partnerships most relevant for each country’s user base. MySpace also announced today that it has plans to launch a Brazilian site this summer and will be ready to officially launch MySpace Mexico, currently in beta, in the coming months.

According to last month’s Nielsen Netratings, 43% of all U.S. based Hispanic Internet users are visiting MySpace and the site is among the country’s top 5 most visited sites by the Hispanic Web population.

MySpace’s own internal numbers show that more than six million members have indicated their origin as either Latino(a) and/or Hispanic in the United States alone.

It’s about time a Latino version of MySpace was launched. If the gringo version of MySpace is cool, just imagine how cool the Latino version will be.

EU issues warning to Microsoft over disobedience on antitrust ruling

Microsoft’s refusal to comply with some of the obligations under its antitrust ruling in March 2004 may prompt the European Commission (EU) to consider stiffer penalties in future antitrust cases, Europe’s chief competition enforcer told US lawyers.

Neelie Kroes, the European Commission’s competition commissioner, told a conference in Washington, that a more drastic remedy such as a breakup may be needed for companies that continue to abuse their market dominance.

Under the terms of the antitrust ruling, Microsoft is supposed to disclose complete and accurate interface documentation on ‘reasonable and non-discriminatory terms’ to allow non-Microsoft work group servers to inter-operate with Windows PCs and servers.

The EU executive accused Microsoft of demanding excessive royalties for the licensing of its software protocols last month. However, Microsoft claims its prices are justified as the data comes from its own work, with its sensitive technical information protected by patents.

Microsoft previously agreed that the main basis for pricing should be whether its protocols are innovative.

But the Commission said it believes there is no significant innovation in the company’s interoperability protocols to warrant higher prices, and rejected as unfounded the 1500 pages of interoperability information made available by Microsoft from December 2005 onwards.

However, the Commission said it is still considering whether the interoperability information is complete and accurate.

In a PriceWaterhouseCoopers analysis Microsoft’s prices were judged to be at least 30% below the market rate for comparable technology, Brad Smith, Microsoft’s senior vice president and general counsel said.

According to Hemscott, Smith argued that other government agencies in the US and Europe have found ‘considerable innovation’ in the company’s protocol technology.

Patent offices have awarded Microsoft more than 36 patents for technology and another 37 are pending, “so it’s hard to see how the commission can argue that even patented innovation must be made available for free,” he added.

Smith also said that Microsoft has always been ‘willing’ to consider reasonable price offers from potential licensees and ia currently conducting negotiations.

Study: Windows users pay $21.50 for Microsoft patent woes

Businesses and consumers are paying an additional $21.50 “patent tax” on all Raymond operating systems to cover Microsoft’s ceaseless patent-related lawsuits and settlements, the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) claims.

The “patent tax”, as SFLC called it, is based on the amount of money Microsoft has spent as legal fees and on settling patent infringement claims involving Windows and Office over the last three years, divided by the estimated number of Windows installations.

In the last three years, SFLC estimates Microsoft has publicly paid more than $4bn to plaintiffs who claim Windows and Office products infringe on their patents. The high-profile legal settlements Microsoft paid include the $1.5bn to Alcatel-Lucent, $1.25bn to Sun, $536m to Novell and $440m to Intertrust, a total of $4.3bn.

Base on Microsoft estimates that suggest an installation rate of 200 million machines per year, the group arrives to $21.50 per copy of OS as patent tax.

The real figure could be higher as there are a number of undisclosed settlements during the three years. However, the figure could equally be an over-estimate, given the money Microsoft paid to Novel and a significant proportion of the money the company paid Sun covered antitrust rather than patent infringement claims.

A report from the SFLC said: “While $21.50 might not sound like a lot, it adds up pretty quickly. A school with only 50 Windows machines - barely enough for one class of students - is paying $1,000 of its limited budget in patent tax, rather than buying books or other useful supplies. A government agency with a mere couple of hundred Windows machines is paying many thousands of taxpayer dollars in patent tax.”

The simplistic approach made by SFLC to calculating such a large corporation’s legal expenses affecting product pricing is bound to draw some criticism. But SFLC researcher Matt Norwood said, the $21.50 figure probably isn’t a literal price increase from having to handle law disputes. However, he said it’s important to recognize legal costs from patent disputes are being passed from developer unto the user.

The SFLC said: “Customers in Europe and North America pay more for Windows licenses than in less affluent countries, leaving them with a bigger slice of the patent tax pie. And many Windows installations are unlicensed, meaning that those users’ share of the patent tax gets passed on to paying customers.”

In comparison, the SFLC said, Linux has no “patent tax” at all, and suggests that this finding be taken into consideration when choosing operating systems.

OMG! MySpace now features News

The social networking site, Myspace, is offering a new service to its users allowing them to rate popular news stories around the web in a “Digg-like” manner. Myspace, owned by News Corp., is hoping to attract a wider audience with MySpace News while increasing advertising revenue.

The new service uses an algorithm to crawl the web, similar to the way Google News obtains stories, and collects the most popular and current topics to display on its News page.

Users who visit MySpace News will initially be shown the top news stories; each story is ordered by the number of votes given to it by the community. Alternatively, users can select stories within a given topic such as TV, finance, web rumor, gadgets, gaming, etc,…

The term “Digg-like” is often used when a site allows its members to vote up or vote down particular items in a list of content. This method has proved to be very successful, as no one knows what people want better than the people themselves. Although, unlike Digg, stories will not submitted by users; they will simply be able to vote up stories collected by Myspace.

Myspace News will also have a significant boost from its over 160 million members which accounted for 4% of all website visits earlier in the year.

“It’s a great marriage between technology and letting the users pick and rate the stories,” said Myspace cofounder, Tom Anderson, while noting that Myspace members will ultimately determine the quality of MySpace News. “We’re the editorial engine driving our news service,” said Tom, in a press release.

However, if the people determine what content is relevant, it raises the question as to what MySpace members actually deem to be good news. (As I write this, the headline “Top 5 sources for glitter text” comes to mind.)

A taste of adolescence has already been added with the voting system, which is based on a scale of 1 to 5: hated it, didn’t like it, liked it, really liked it, and loved it.

But MySpace is changing, and this new service could be an attempt to cater to the new audience. Jack Flanagan, executive vice president of comScore Media Metrix, “the demographic composition of MySpace.com has changed considerably. Last year half of the site’s visitors were at least 25 years old, while today more than two-thirds of MySpace visitors are age 25 or older.”

An analysis of Myspace by comScore in late 2006 suggests that over half of MySpace’s visitors are of age 35 and older, leaving the social networking site to have the broadest appeal across all age ranges.

This new service is, in part, aimed at keeping MySpace members coming back more frequently and staying online for a longer duration. Currently, MySpace users sign-on, on average, 19 times per month and spend roughly 10 minutes per visit in the US, according to comScore.

MySpace News was created using technology from Newroo, a company purchased by MySpace parent News Corp. last year. “Many advertisers have expressed interest in the service, which allows them to target the MySpace community in a more direct way,” said Brian Norgard, co-founder of Newroo.

The service is to draw from over 4,500 Online news publishers, in which they will be given the choice to have their news feed removed from MySpace News. Ironically, the news about ‘MySpace News’ has made the front page.

Yahoo to use PayPal for online payments

Yahoo and eBay have announced a new online payment program called the Yahoo PayPal Checkout Program, which will increase PayPal’s profile on the Internet, while at the same time providing Yahoo with a smoother payment system for its services.

Starting April 17, Yahoo Sponsored Search results will feature a blue shopping cart icon linking to merchants that accept PayPal Express Checkout as a method of payment. The program enables a streamlined purchase process for the more than 100 million PayPal customers on the Internet, and helps extends the value of Yahoo’s new search marketing platform (Project Panama).

Yahoo PayPal Checkout Program is being launched with special offers for merchants, such as free PayPal processing until December 31, 2007 and a $100 credit for Yahoo search ads. Once signed up, merchants can expect the PayPal cart icon to appear against their Yahoo listing after ten days:

Here is how it works:

When a user enter a search key to find an item or service to Yahoo Search, the results page may include Yahoo Sponsored Search results matched to the user’s search key. Under the Sponsored Search results, a blue shopping cart icon will appear next to the merchant’s name that has joined the program. By clicking on the ad, users will have direct access to a safe, secure purchasing process that does not require any additional credit card information and can be completed in just a few mouse clicks.

“This is great news for online shoppers and for merchants. Both want the online shopping and buying process to go smoothly and quickly, and connecting Yahoo! Search with PayPal Express accomplishes that,” said Rich Riley, Sr. Vice President, Online Channel & Small Business Services, Yahoo! Inc.

Yahoo is confident that this program will help its sponsored search customers stand out by showing their support for a secure, express service managed by two of the best known online brands.

As part of an agreement entered into one year ago, Yahoo made PayPal the exclusive third-party provider of its online wallet, integrated PayPal with the Yahoo site and began promoting PayPal as Yahoo’s payment solution to Yahoo’s merchants and publishers.

In addition, Yahoo is the exclusive third-party provider of all graphical advertisements throughout the eBay.com site (eBay.com owns PayPal), and provides sponsored search results on eBay.com search results pages.