Your music no longer plays in 3… 2… 1…

After iTunes was a monumental success, Microsoft did a bit of catch up with MSN Music Store.  A few years later Microsoft played catch up again by releasing the Zune, their wannabe iPod.  At the Zune’s release, Microsoft dumped the MSN Music Store and opened the Zune Marketplace.  Rather than use the same file format and DRM system, Microsoft “upgraded” the entire system.  This would not be an issue however, they did not consider backwards compatibility with music purchased from the MSN store.  The music from the MSN store is unplayable using the new Zune computer software and the Zune player. 

While having to keep old software on a PC just to play music purchase legally is bad enough, Microsoft has taken the pitfalls of DRM to a whole new level.  Right now music from the MSN store can be moved to new computers, but when ever moved, the software checks in to Microsoft’s server.  Even if the OS is upgraded, the server must be contacted. While the server check in is handled in the background and not a big deal, Microsoft has decided to shut off the server. 

Come August 31st, 2008 Microsoft will shut down the PlaysForSure (ironic name for the DRM) server.  The MSN Entertainment and Video Services general manager Rob Bennett emailed a statement to MSN Store users, “As of August 31, 2008, we will no longer be able to support the retrieval of license keys for the songs you purchased from MSN Music or the authorization of additional computers,” reads the e-mail seen by Ars. “You will need to obtain a license key for each of your songs downloaded from MSN Music on any new computer, and you must do so before August 31, 2008. If you attempt to transfer your songs to additional computers after August 31, 2008, those songs will not successfully play.”  Basically, if you have music from the MSN Music Store, get them on the five machines you want by August 31st and never upgrade, never move them to another machine, and hope your hard drive never needs to be replaced (it will make the music think it’s on a new machine; therefore try to connect to a new server). 

How Microsoft can pull this off amazes me.  I’m surprised there was not a massive lawsuit from when the Zune was incompatible with the MSN Store music.  However, I do not know the actual number of songs sold through the MSN Music Store. It may not even be enough for a class-action suit.  And as Ars Technica suggests there is the option of burning to CD then ripping back onto the computer to loose the DRM, however there is a massive loss in quality.

Charlie Rose makes the same call I would…

Television journalist Charlie Rose tripped in a pot hole while walking in New York, but rather than risk injury to his brand new MacBook Air, Charlie decided to catch himself with his face, saving the MBA from almost certain harm.  Personally, I think Charlie made the right call.

 

Via TechCrunch

MacBook Air: So Thin it Disappears

Renown tech columnist and author Steven Levy has just written a review of the MacBook Air for Newsweek.  However, his review is very limited because he lost the loaner Apple sent him.  He assumes his wife threw it out (though she denies it) with the Sunday Times because it light enough to be missed by the massiveness of the paper (a point I noted in my review).  A valuable lesson comes from this though: do not hide your MBA in the Times or keep it in an envelope, it will get thrown away or mailed.

Via Newsweek

The Dutch use BitTorrent for Good

In a previous article, I mentioned how BitTorrent is a great way to distribute files to many people with a very low overhead, because it has client machines helping with the distribution.  Well, TorrentFreak.com is reporting INHOLLAND University has found an system update solution in BitTorrent.  The university is using BitTorrent to distribute very large updates (sometimes as much as 3.5GBs) to the more than 6500 machines spread across 17 locations in the Netherlands.  In the past INHOLLAND was using 22 central servers to download then distribute the files, a process taking four days.  The BitTorrent solution has reduced the number of central servers to TWO and the total time for all 17 locations and 6500 computers has been reduced to 4 HOURS. 

It is worth noting, the university prepared for the security risk in implementing such a solution.  The BitTorrent server will only work when logged into administrator accounts and never leaves the universities WAN.  This way students are unable to use a very beneficial solution against the university or for illegal downloading.

This is the perfect example the capabilities of BitTorrent.  Not only has it reduced the amount of hardware, but also the number of man hours installing update creating a huge return on investment for time.  This was a risk that definitely paid off. 

Via TorrentFreak