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Apple TV 3.0.1 update addresses disappearing content issue
According to Apple’s release notes on the 3.0.1 update, Apple TV 3.0 users may notice that movies, TV shows, and songs appear to be missing from their device. The 3.0.1 update fixes that problem.
Users should restart their Apple TV by unplugging the power cord and plugging it back in. Then, they should select Settings->General from the main menu, followed by selecting Update Software. Select Download and Install when prompted by the Apple TV.
If the problem persists, Apple tells users to disconnect the Apple TV from their computers from Settings->Computers , and then reconnect the device again. If the users are still experiencing the problem, they should try a factory restore and an update to version 3.0.1 before re-syncing content from iTunes.
Apple released the 3.0 update to the Apple TV software late last month. That update added a new main menu interface that provides direct access to rented and purchased movies, TV shows, music, podcasts, photos, and YouTube videos; the update also let Apple TV users enjoy iTunes LP and iTunes Extras content for albums and movies.
Beatles ban takes effect at BlueBeat
In a contentious court battle launched by record label EMI, the brazen owner of online retailer BlueBeat has begun complying with a new court order to stop selling Beatles music online, after offering a quirky defense that he owns the copyright to the songs at issue.
In a message sent from his iPhone earlier this week, BlueBeat owner Hank Risan told his attorney that he—rather than EMI or Apple Corps—is the rightful owner of the Beatles tunes for sale on his Website, according to a report in paidContent.org.
Risan contended that he authored the songs using "psycho-acoustic simulations." These simulations "are my synthetic creation of that series of sounds which best expresses the way I believe a particular melody should be heard as a live performance," he messaged.
But on Wednesday, a Los Angeles judge rejected BlueBeat's assertions that it is selling only re-recorded versions of the songs. Instead, the judge found in favor of EMI, a record label that argued in court that BlueBeat is "thumbing their noses" at EMI and Apple.
Ruling that BlueBeat hasn't provided enough evidence to back up its claims, the judge came out with an injunction banning the company from streaming or selling tracks from the Beatles and other EMI music artists.
As of Friday at about 9:15 a.m. Eastern time, BlueBeat has indeed stopped selling the unauthorized downloads of the Beatles tracks, previously hawked at bargain basement pricing of 25 cents a track.
The tunes are still visible on the site. Clicking on "Buy" prompts a message that the tracks aren't available for purchase.
Risan's claims rest on a section of the Copyright Act—often applied to music by tribute bands—exempting recordings that "imitate or simulate those in the copyrighted sound recording," according to an account by the BBC.
Yet the Beatles tracks might possibly return to BlueBeat at some point, and with court approval. On a date set for November 20, a court will hear arguments presented by both sides.
Meanwhile, EMI, the owner of the original Beatles recordings, has been in longtime talks with Apple Corps—the company set up by the Beatles to look after their catalog—about arranging some kind of legitimate deal for selling the tunes online.
BlueBeat says Beatles songs are its own creations
Recently I wrote about BlueBeat, a Website that was not only selling MP3 downloads of The Beatles (something the Fab Four doesn’t yet allow, although you will be able to buy an apple-shaped USB drive with the remastered catalog soon), but also selling music in general for the cut-rate price of 25 cents a track. Something seemed fishy.
A few days later, EMI—the record company that controls the Beatles’ music—and others filed a lawsuit against BlueBeat for copyright infringement and asked for a temporary restraining order (TRO).
And that’s where things get really weird.
As Ars Technica reports, Media Rights Technologies (MRT), the company behind BlueBeat, has a very reasonable explanation for why what it’s doing is legal. You see, according to MRT’s co-founder and CEO Hank Risan, the songs BlueBeat is selling are in fact his original creations.
Orb for Mac lets you stream your media anywhere
Mac users can finally join their Windows brethren in using Orb, the media-sharing software from the creatively-named Orb Networks.
Orb for Mac OS X lets you enjoy your media—think iTunes music, videos, iPhoto pictures—from any other Internet-capable device, all via streaming. That means you can listen to your favorite songs on your work PC, as long as you leave your Mac turned on at home. You can also access your media via a Web interface.
iPhone owners can also buy OrbLive in the App Store for $10; the app turns your iPhone (or WiFi-connected iPod touch) into an ideal Orb client: You can listen to all of your 80 gigs of ABBA/Yoko Ono mash-ups, without using up any of the memory on your device. If you want to give it a try first, there's a free version as well.
Orb for Mac is a free download and available now; it requires an Intel Mac running Mac OS X 10.5 or later.
Review: Sonos ZonePlayer S5
I’ve made no secret of my love for the Sonos Multi-room Music System (
), a system designed to let you listen to your music all over your house. It’s the musical gadget I use most often in my home. But it’s not cheap. To get started you need at least a $349 ZonePlayer 90 and a pair of powered speakers. And if you want a way to control the system apart from your computer, you require either an iPhone or iPod touch with the free Sonos Controller app or a $349 Sonos Controller 200 hardware controller ().
Sonos is attempting to bring down this cost of entry with its just-released $399 ZonePlayer S5, a totable, table-top unit that's the first ZonePlayer to offer integrated speakers. Whether it tempts you to join the Sonos family will depend, in large part, on how you like its sound.
Parts and ports
The S5 carries five speakers—a 3.5-inch woofer, two 3-inch midrange drivers, and two tweeters. Each speaker is driven by its own Class-D digital amplifier. On the back of the S5 you’ll find a 3.5mm headphone port; a 3.5mm audio-input port for connecting an analog audio source such as an iPod, portable disc player, or TV; and two Ethernet ports. You can use one for connecting the S5 to your router and another to deliver a network connection to your computer. If the S5 is connected wirelessly, you can use both ports for network purposes—one for the computer and another for a networked attached storage (NAS) drive, for example. On the top of the unit are volume and mute buttons.
As with other Sonos ZonePlayers, the S5 offers no way to control playback. Rather, you use the free Sonos Desktop Controller application on your Mac, a Sonos hardware remote such as the Sonos Controller 200, or the free Sonos Controller for iPhone app. Via any of these controllers, you can use the ZonePlayer S5 to play music streamed from your music library as well as Internet radio and content from such services as Pandora, Last.fm, Napster, Rhapsody, and Sirius (subscription services such as Napster, Rhapsody, and Sirius require membership).
The Beatles releasing full catalog digitally... via USB
Apple Corps (that's the other Apple) and EMI Music announced Wednesday an upcoming release of the entire Beatles' catalog digitally, in 320 Kbps MP3 and 24-bit FLAC formats. The tracks won't be available in iTunes, or any other online store in fact (at least not legally).
You can only snag them if you buy one of 30,000 limited edition apple-shaped USB sticks. It's the same remastered Beatles tracks that were released on CD back in September, but the new USB stick offers these, uh, exciting features:
1. You only get the stereo option, not the original mono versions
2. You get to pay $280, while the The Beatles Stereo Box Set costs just $180.
Of course, the apple-shaped USB stick has numerous advantages over the CD set, like being apple-shaped, for example. Just as the box set did, the stick will include 14 mini-documentary films about the studio albums, replicas of the original album art, rare photos, and expanded liner notes.
The stick, scheduled for release on December 8th in North America, is available for pre-order at The Beatles' official Website.
[via Gizmodo]
Klipsch releases wireless ProMedia 2.1
Audio vendor Klipsch on Tuesday announced the new ProMedia 2.1 Wireless iPod/Computer Speaker, a wireless version of the company's venerable ProMedia 2.1 speaker system.
Comprising a subwoofer/amplifier unit and left and right satellites, the ProMedia 2.1 Wireless offers similar THX-certified audio quality as the original ProMedia 2.1, but without cables physically connecting your computer and the speaker system. The ProMedia 2.1 Wireless connects to your computer via a USB dongle that transmits audio, wirelessly, to a receiver in the system's subwoofer/amplifier unit. (The satellite speakers are connected to the sub/amp unit via standard speaker cables.) Aimed specifically at laptop users, this design allows you to move around a room, or several rooms, without interrupting audio playback. Klipsch claims the ProMedia 2.1 Wireless's range is approximately 30 unobstructed feet.
The $200 ProMedia 2.1 Wireless is available now directly from the Klipsch.com Web site.
Barnes and Noble sued over Nook intellectual property
The $259 Barnes & Noble Nook is certainly a worthy contender in the up-and-coming e-book reader market. The dual-screen Android device with the funny name was announced last month to rave reception; it seemed everyone couldn’t wait to get their hands on one.
But not all is well in the land of Nooks and crannies. Cupertino-based Spring Design has filed a lawsuit against Barnes & Noble over the use of its Alex e-book intellectual property. It seems that Spring Design had been working on the very same concept since 2006, filing patents along the way, and that it even worked with Barnes & Noble since January of this year to bring Alex to the market with the book-seller as a partner.
Spring Design claimed that the two companies had meetings and other communications, reaching all the way to the executive level, on the subject of the product and collaboration. The release of the Nook apparently caught Spring Design off guard, as they had announced Alex the day before Barnes & Noble announced the Nook. Although, it’s also entirely possible that the announcement was rushed because the company caught wind of the Nook’s impending release.
Eric Kmiec, Spring Design Vice President of Sales and Marketing, said in the press release, “Spring Design unfortunately had to take the appropriate action to protect its intellectual property rights. We showed the Alex e-book design to Barnes & Noble in good faith with the intention of working together to provide a superior dual screen e-book to the market.”
At the moment it is unclear what this lawsuit will mean to the Nook, but Kmiec said, “It is our desire to resolve this matter so that we can move forward together to expand and grow this e-book market with enriched user experience, bringing readers to a new level of reading enjoyment.” Barnes & Noble had not yet responded to the allegations as of this writing.
[via Michael Gartenberg]
Is Spotify the future of music listening?
For years, we’ve been hearing about iPod killers, iTunes wannabes, and new music services. We’ve seen them come and we’ve seen them go. My colleague Chris Breen wrote about several of them a few weeks ago. But there was one that Chris couldn’t sample, because it’s not yet available in the U.S.: Spotify. Created by a Swedish company, Spotify is only available in Sweden, Norway, Finland, the United Kingdom, France, and Spain—but the company is planning a U.S. roll-out in the near future. There’s a Mac app, a Windows app, and an iPhone app available.
Spotify uses a proprietary peer-to-peer system in which users store music in cache folders on their computers and stream that music to others when requested. If no users have the music, Spotify feeds it from its servers, but over time, the goal is to off-load much of the traffic to users. The music is streamed in Ogg Vorbis format, at approximately 160 Kbps.
Spotify is currently available for free (with ads) in a limited, invitation-only form, and a premium service—with no ads and higher bit rates, as well as off-line listening—for €10 (and equivalent amounts in non-euro zone countries). In addition, users can purchase some music directly through the Spotify application. Ads can be annoying: there are both visual and audio ads, the former displaying at the side or bottom of the Spotify window, and the latter inserted between tracks, roughly every four tracks or so. As I’m in France, I got ads in French, all of which were simply trying to sell me on Spotify’s premium service. They were especially annoying because they came in between movements of classical works, or between live tracks that segue into each other. But that’s the price of free.
With about 6 million tracks currently, Spotify has a good selection, but as with all digital music services, whether you find what you want depends on your tastes. As a classical music fan, I’d love to find a service with a broad selection of classical tracks, but Spotify’s classical selection is limited. It does, however, have a lot of Grateful Dead music, with pretty much the band’s entire catalog of live and studio recordings. You’ll also find music by Madonna, U2, Michael Jackson, Miles Davis, Brad Mehldau, Frank Sinatra, Snoop Dogg, Coldplay, Radiohead, and many more. However, as I write this, only two of the top ten songs in the iTunes Store are available.
Finding music to listen to is Spotify’s weakness. There is no way to browse what’s available, and searching uses somewhat complex search syntax that, while powerful, will annoy casual users. For example, fans of indie, jazz and classical music might want to see which albums specific labels have, and when you find an album, there’s no way to click a link and see more from that label (as you can on, say, eMusic). There’s also no composer information, enabling you to search for composers, or click through to more music from a specific composer.
Users can create playlists, and can share them with others using special links. (For example, mystery author Peter Robinson, whose main character listens to a lot of music in his novels, has some fan-created Spotify playlists on his Website).
The real weakness with Spotify—and other subscription-based services—is the inability to listen on a portable device (with the exception of an iPod touch or iPhone). You can’t put music on an iPod unless you purchase it, which defeats the purpose of a subscription. While I spend a lot of time in front of my computer, what if I want to listen to music from Spotify in another location? Well, there’s always Airfoil. But I wouldn’t be able to control the Spotify application.
Chris Breen has long been a fan of streaming services, and I’ve never really had opportunities to try them out before, as most are limited to the U.S. I don’t know if I can be won over by Spotify, but in spite of its weaknesses, it has promise.
Senior contributor Kirk McElhearn writes about more than just Macs on his blog Kirkville. He has also been Reading Henry James lately.
Report: Apple pitching TV subscription service to networks
It would seem Hulu’s not the only company re-evaluating its strategies for making money on television content in the digital age. According to a report at All Things Digital, Apple has been floating a $30 per month television subscription service to content owners.
That’s the pitch Apple has been making to TV networks in recent weeks. The company is trying to round up support for a monthly subscription service that would deliver TV programs via its multimedia software, multiple sources tell me.
Of course, content providers are notoriously resistant to change—doing a three-point turn on an African elephant is probably faster. The entrenched business model has networks making lucrative deals with service providers like Comcast, Time-Warner, and AT&T—deals they don't necessarily want to put in danger by making their content more widely available. Not to mention that the fees paid by advertisers, still a big chunk of network income, are based on viewership ratings, which could take a hit if more viewers were to move to an ad-free model.
Television show episodes have been on sale in the iTunes Store since fall 2005, when a handful of ABC-owned shows debuted, but something tells me that sales have never been as strong as Apple would have liked; Apple doesn't regularly break out iTunes Store sales by content type, but TV shows almost certainly pale next to music sales—when was the last time you heard the company brag about how many TV episodes have been downloaded? Buying television shows on an à la carte basis can be pretty expensive, depending on your consumption habits, and more to the point, purchase is not the default model for most television viewers—most people don't buy DVD box sets of every show they watch. Hence, the success of sites like Hulu and Netflix, which offer streaming on ad-based or subscription models.
A deal with Apple does make some sense for the content vendors. When Apple launched music download sales, music piracy was rampant. Steve Jobs argued that iTunes was a way to compete with piracy, not try to stamp it out. Instead, Apple would provide a superior product that people would be willing to pay money for—and it panned out, with Apple selling more than five billion songs. Television piracy may not be as common as music piracy was, but it does exist and it’s an extremely well-oiled and, more important, quiet machine. Distributing television episodes doesn't seem to incur nearly as much legal attention as music or feature film piracy. Still, there are places where it’s vulnerable to a superior—and legitimate—product, and that’s a niche Apple can exploit.
Despite gains made by sites like Netflix and Hulu, there is room in this market for Apple, as I’ve been arguing for more than three years. For one thing, it’s got a huge base of existing customers—more than 65 million credit card-linked accounts, as All Things Digital points out. For another, its got a foothold in the mobile space with the iPhone and iPod touch, a realm in which neither Netflix or Hulu competes at present. Thirdly, subscription television could be the killer app for the Apple TV, allowing some users to actually ditch their cable subscriptions and finally transforming Apple's hobby into a worthwhile commercial offering. Netflix has moved towards bringing its service to the living room by offering streaming via Roku’s set-top boxes, some Blu-ray consoles, and game consoles like Microsoft's Xbox 360, but Hulu has taken pains to try and keep its content locked firmly to the Web.
There are still hurdles, both for the business and technological angles. Live events such as sports and news don’t really work in the current iTunes model, which would likely prevent lots of people from switching wholesale to an online distribution system. And then there’s the question of how the model would work: would it be an all-you-can-eat service, or would the television companies insist upon metering of some kind? What about content from premium channels like HBO and Showtime? If you wanted to purchase shows after watching them, what kind of prices would we be talking?
All Things Digital says that none of the content providers is currently onboard with the subscription plan, which Apple would reportedly like to launch next year, but also speculates that Disney, with its close ties to Jobs, could be the first to sign on.
As someone who actively follows a lot of television shows—we’re talking well over a dozen—a $30 flat fee would be an extremely attractive value proposition. But it’s going to depend on the content that’s available, the quality, and what advantages Apple offers over services like Netflix and Hulu. So I put it to you, readers: would you pay $30 a month for television? Why or why not?
