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marketplaces

GSMA selects mobile innovation winners

The GSM Association's Mobile Innovation Marketplace has wrapped up in Atlanta, and as expected two start-up companies won the right to go to the 2009 GSMA World Congress in Barcelona. The two winning firms are Ubidyne, a company that develops digital radio systems, and Modu, the maker of the world's lightest cell phone.

I checked out Modu earlier this year at the 2008 World Congress. The Israeli company has developed a concept for a modular cell phone that can be placed into a "jacket" that changes both the appearance and the functionality of the handset. It'… Read more

GSMA comes to America

Each February, the GSM Association (GSMA) organizes the world's largest cell phone trade show in Barcelona. And after a couple years of advocating to go to the GSMA World Congress, Bonnie Cha and I attended the show this year where both of us were astounded at the cool cell phones we saw. As the show has a global focus, it has a wider range of products, companies, and services than the CTIA show can offer. The only trouble is, you have to go all the way to Barcelona to see it.

But this week the GSMA is dipping its … Read more

Microsoft launches Task Market for Office jocks

Two Microsoft research groups, Microsoft Research Asia and Microsoft Office Labs, have launched Task Market, an online marketplace for jobs that can be done on Office applications.

Like Elance, oDesk, and other piecework job sites, Task Market is a marketplace for people with skills and time--and those that need them.

Task Market is focused on very specific, and nontechnical jobs. At the moment, the only job categories allowed on the site are writing, editing, translation, and basic design. Why not programming or scripting or multimedia editing? Because, as the FAQ says, "By focusing on tasks accomplished using applications such … Read more

Zune struggles to find the right pitch

After a decent freshman year, the Zune appears to be having a bit of a sophomore slump.

In its first year on the market, Microsoft shipped 1.2 million Zunes, reaching about 3 percent of the U.S. market for MP3 players by the first quarter of 2007. A year later, the company's market share stands at about 4 percent, but that slight gain comes as Microsoft has expanded from one hard-drive model into a family of products that includes both flash-based and hard drive-based units.

As part of its announcement of a Zune video store this week, Microsoft … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 718: Always worry

We could tell you not to worry, but then you'd e-mail us and tell us why you should. So, new rule. Always worry. And the HTC Touch Diamond ain't all that, but we're not saying the 3G iPhone is going to be all that, either. Don't get your hopes up. This is turning into an Eeyore sort of day, isn't it? Here's some good news: Zune 2.5 offers TV downloads! So...yay! Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 718

Vodafone, Telecom Italia announce massive iPhone rollout http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2008/05/06/ vodafone-telecom-italia-announce-massive-iphone-rollout … Read more

Zune: Welcome to the video

A year and a half after debuting its first Zune, Microsoft is finally offering some content that makes use of that big color screen.

The software maker is releasing an update Tuesday to its Zune service that adds a video store with about 800 TV show episodes from NBC Universal, MTV, and a couple of other producers. For the moment, though, the store is far smaller than the TV options from iTunes or even from Microsoft's own Xbox Live Marketplace and offers no feature films.

"We feel it is more important and--customers tell us--to focus on short programming … Read more

Is Microsoft preparing a Zune update?

UPDATE (12:35 p.m. on 5-03-08): To include reference to possible ties to Zune VideoX.

A reader of a site dedicated to Zune news has posted photos of what are claimed to be new features at Zune's Marketplace, including flash animation and a new video section.

The photos were posted at Zunerama.com and are said to be of flash animation and two new tabs. One of the tabs is called "video" and the other is "listeners."

Speculation on the site is that Microsoft is possibly preparing to update Marketplace and is testing some … Read more

Webware 100 winner: Zune Marketplace

Microsoft's Zune Marketplace saw a huge change in 2007 with the release of the second-generation Zune. Even if you didn't have the device, the layout and speed of the program was greatly improved and the marketplace interface completely redone. The folks who designed Windows Media Center for Windows Vista were behind the change, and the result is a program that was less like the strung together reskin of Windows Media Player from previous generation.

In order to get music or music videos off of the Zune Marketplace users must either must pay a monthly subscription for all-you-can eat … Read more

More song information, please

Last night, I had an interesting experience that pointed out a drawback of digital music services compared with the tried-and-true CD (or LP, or cassette). For the last few years, I've played with a very occasional pickup band--maybe one party a year, preceded by a half dozen rehearsals, then everybody back to their jobs/families/"real" bands. This year, we're playing a St. Patrick's Day party, and in the past, we've done a version of the Phish instrumental "First Tube." We wanted a quick refresher, so one of the guitarists fired up … Read more