Changes come to the iTunes Store

Beginning today, all four major music labels — Universal Music Group, Sony BMG, Warner Music Group and EMI — and thousands of independent labels, now offer their music in the DRM-free iTunes Plus format with higher-quality 256 kbps AAC encoding. iTunes customers can also now purchase and download songs directly onto their iPhone 3G over their 3G network — just as they do with Wi-Fi today — for the same price as downloading to their computer. And in April, based on what the music labels charge Apple, songs on iTunes will be available for 69¢, 99¢, or $1.29, with most albums still priced at $9.99.

Making Car Parts With Coconuts & the Dangers of Eco-Tokens

Coconuts in the TrunkResearchers from Baylor University have figured out a way to make trunk liners, floorboards, and car-door interior covers using using fibers from the outer husks of coconuts. Usually these are made from synthetic polyester fibers. This sounds like a (small) win, though we have some reservations. Read on for more....

iPhoto '09 Video Tour [Macworld 2009]

newVideoPlayer("/iphoto_09_2_giz.flv", 506, 305,""); Here are a few best features of iPhoto '09, including Faces and Places, which recognizes people in your albums and the locations you took those...

Kyu Sung Woo's Harvard Housing Goes LEED Gold

Photos: © Timothy Hursley - The Arkansas Office10 Akron Street, Kyu Sung Woo's smart new graduate student housing complex for Harvard University in Cambridge, MA, has received high praise from the US Green Building Council: a Gold LEED rating.Among other sustainable touches, the 115,000 sq ft brick-and-timber building features regionally-sourced siding with recycled content, bamboo flooring and wall paneling, and low-VOC finishes, while building systems are designed and engineered to minimize energy usage. Inside, two-story study lounges and other pub...

Pharos rolls out Traveler 137, coming this quarter for $599.95

3.5's the magic number with Pharos' new Windows Mobile-based offering: 3.5-inch display -- wide VGA, no less -- and 3.5G data. The Traveler 137 rolls deep with the best HTC has to offer (owing in no small part to their ODM partnership with Inventec, we figure) with 512MB of Flash, 256MB of RAM, AGPS, 7.2Mbps HSPA on T-Mobile USA (seriously!) and European bands, WiFi, 3-megapixel cam, and the kitchen sink thrown in for good measure. Kinda sounds like a keyboardless X1, doesn't it? Look for it to hit retailers this quarter for a nickel under $600.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Verbatim trots out OS X-friendly 8GB Store 'n' Go retractable USB drive

Verbatim doesn't really make a lot of racket during the year, but come Macworld / CES, it pulls out all of the stops. Alongside a new family of delectable ExpressCard SSDs, the company is also introducing an 8GB Store 'n' Go Retractable USB Drive (Windows version shown) that caters to the OS X crowd. Verbatim's pushing two main selling points here: for starters, the capless, retractable design means that your USB socket will always be covered, and secondly, the password controlled access to the drive's private zone plays nice within an OS X environment. The half-ounce device is expected to land on store shelves in just a few weeks, though it'll cost you a stiff $59.99 if you're looking to pay MSRP.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Report: Cloud-Based Email Cheapest Option for Most Companies

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WowWee Alive Gets New Quartet

Seagate's Barracuda 7200.12 HD packs 500GB per platter

Around 1.5 years ago, we were all sitting around in awe of the ultra-dense Barracuda 7200.10. Now, Seagate has doubled up on that gigabyte-per-platter milestone with the Barracuda 7200.12. As of this week, the desktop hard drive with the industry's highest areal density (329 Gigabits per square inch, for those curious) is shipping, as the firm's engineers have somehow figured out how to squeeze 500GB onto a single disk. The 3.5-inch 7,200RPM drive touts a SATA interface, a sustained data rate of up to 160MB/second and a burst speed of 3Gb/second. It's available as we speak in 500GB, 750GB and 1TB capacities, though there's no telling how much coin you'll be asked to lay down in order to take home the bragging rights.

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iMovie '09: Video Tour [Macworld 2009]

newVideoPlayer("/imovie_09_2_giz.flv", 475, 316,""); In this shakey cam tour (sorry) we go over the three most interesting functions in iMovie 09: The globetrotting map animations, an automatic shake...