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Comments on: Microsoft's Zune aims to be social butterfly

iPod challenger to let people share streamed music with others, according to FCC filing by Toshiba.

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A PDA with HDD?
by rslc August 26, 2006 7:52 AM PDT
Is that what it is? :p
Reply to this comment
Happy Zuners
by open-mind August 26, 2006 8:54 AM PDT
I can just imagine how happy each Zuner will be after many weeks
when they finally find another Zuner with which to share a
promotional song.

This is unprecedented.

ROTFL
Reply to this comment
Zuner Ear Buds...
by open-mind August 26, 2006 9:04 AM PDT
... should include bright light-emitting-diodes.

Then the LEDs could work like beacons to help Zuners to find each
other.
Zuners can also use www.match.com
by open-mind August 26, 2006 9:11 AM PDT
The match.com folks just need to add another checkbox.

I am seeking...

[ ] Marriage
[ ] Romance
[ ] Friendship
[ ] Promotional Song Exchange
Promotional Songs!!
by daveworld August 26, 2006 11:04 AM PDT
We love those promotional (aka advertising) songs ;-)
A social drain on battery life
by microsoft slayer August 26, 2006 10:03 AM PDT
It's pretty useless if it's only going to last 3 hours.
Reply to this comment
3 Hours = 20 Minutes
by Sumatra-Bosch August 27, 2006 7:48 PM PDT
If the press releases say 3 hours, its battery life will be no more than 15 or 20 minutes. When both people who buy one complain, MS will accuse them of being Apple employees looking to smear the company.

Roberto
Everyones forgetting one critical detail.
by Vurk August 26, 2006 5:46 PM PDT
Because this is an MS product with a hard drive, and not a piece of consumer electronics, it will be using a version of Windows XP as the operating system. Or Windows CE. Or Pocket PC.

The point is that the Zune will run on a Windows-based operating system. Can you say viruses, spam-bots and security holes?
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No I cant say that.
by richto August 26, 2006 6:11 PM PDT
My Smartphone runs a version of Windows CE, cant say ive ever heard of a virus for it. Unlike Symbian devices that are infested with them. I can same the same for my Ipaq.

The Xbox runs a version of Windows - no one ever managed to put a virus on that.

My current media player Runs Windows - those have never had any viruses either.

erm so no I cant see that is going to be a problem
No, but I can say hater....
by woody56292 August 26, 2006 11:25 PM PDT
Critical detail has been found, you are a fanboy. Have a good night.
One critical detail
by NotJoelShapiro August 28, 2006 1:04 AM PDT
Does the Xbox/xbox 360 run a version of Windows?
Zune another flop
by kyle172 August 27, 2006 7:03 PM PDT
It looks ugly as hell
Reply to this comment
Worthy of a Brain-damaged Company Run By a Bald Orangutan
by Sumatra-Bosch August 27, 2006 7:46 PM PDT
Here's the whole story on Zune, the Vistapocalypse and the end of Microsoft. . .

Redmond will release Zune in time for Christmas and sell nearly 50, not counting the ones Microsoft will send to Steve Jobs as a lousy joke. MS CEO Steve Ballmer will be arrested for biting a mother on her face in a department store while her son and daughter inspect the offerings at the iPod display. Ballmer will claim the report of the attack was a "gross exaggeration, spread by Microsoft's infinite enemies; I just brushed by her, looking for the Zune display" before settling out of court.

Defects will plague the players (all 42 that will finally be sold) and Microsoft will end up in a law suit with all its media vendors who will charge that Microsoft was refusing to pay royalties after placing a 1/800th of a second of silence at the end of the songs they were selling through Zune and claiming they were all "new, original and innovative works copyrighted Microsoft. Duh." After 8 months of litigation, the suit will be settled out of court after CEO Ballmer bites through one of the tires on the Sony attorney's Lexus in the court parking lot and is shot with a tranquilizer round by the Washington State Department of Animal Control.

Zune will be pulled off the shelves in June 2007 after MS issues a press release describing "its brilliant *pilot* of a massive, galaxy-stretching, mind-expanding portable media program yet to come" as a "total and unquestioned success." Analysts will point out, however, that after the law suits, media companies were so shocked to find nastier lawyers working for MS than they ever employed, MS was unable to contract any content for the Zune service at all.

MS will be forced to start its own recording label and will only be able to sign William Shatner scatting and singing obscene lyrics to television theme songs and, in a desperate play, offer downloadable monster movies of CEO Ballmer stalking and eating his neighbors' pets. Analysts, newspaper columnists, national security consultants and religious leaders will accurately predict the devastating Vistapocalypse that will attend the release of Vista on Thanksgiving Day, 2007.

Microsoft, sure of its success, will make an unprecedented media move buying all of the available commercial air time on the SuperBowl broadcast to demonstrate Vista's "advanced features" during commercial breaks starring William Shatner and CEO Ballmer as 'Spock' aboard the new "Starship Vista." Breaking with tradition, the spots will air live and will have to be improvised largely by Shatner when Ballmer's bright red Federation officer's jersey becomes hopelessly tangled around his head. "The new Aero screen saver is guaranteed to neutralize erectile dysfunction, hair loss and flatuence, right Science Officer Ballmer?" Shatner will announce, beaming from his familiar captain's chair, while muffled shrieks emanate from the crimson-shrouded head of the shirtless Ballmer, thrashing senselessly, struggling to pull the jersey down over his head.

By the third quarter, newscasters will announce during breaks in the action that Vista had been cracked by Eastern European and Central Asian terrorist groups, had already taken over all the Vista desktops in the western world and were using them to drain corporate bank accounts and send wire transfers to Al Qaeda. Ballmer, interviewed by sportcasters on the scene, will be by then hopelessly entangled in the red jersey with his hands caught in the sleeves and his arms suspended over his shoulders. Unable to answer their questions with anything more than a strangled scream, Ballmer runs from the TV cameras and head-butts the Astrodome until he is unconscious.

The next day, President Bush will declare, "Now I know what the 'blue screens of death' thing-things were all about. These people are fellow travelleres to Al Qaeda and their collaborators in the Democratic Party," and orders the Justice Department to bring racketeering and terrorism charges against the company. MS attempts to deflect the charges by changing its address to a vacant lot in Spokane and ordering its employees to hide their eyes behind their hands while at work on the Redmond campus.

CEO Ballmer flees justice and is caught in a dragnet some months later by British Columbia animal control officers, answering a call about an insane pet-eating bear running amock in Fort Nelson in northern British Columbia. There, CEO Ballmer will be shot dead after fatally chewing through the neck of one officer and nearly severing his head from his shoulders.

MS will collapse as thousands of employees leave, disgusted by the ethics of company convicted of abusive business practices and accused of shoddy engineering, racketeering, terrorism and finally, in the last straw, cannibalism. The company loses most of its board and finally a court appoints a board of receivers to maintain the company until the Windows operating system can be sold to investors.

Microsoft XBOX survives as Shatner buys the division, keeping the tradename 'Microsoft' as the receivers could find no one else to buy the name of a company associated with crime, terrorism, insanity and cannibalism. Shatner will market a successful range of pornographic outer-space adventure games under the brand for the XBOX.
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Good Post.. except...
by ServedUp August 27, 2006 7:54 PM PDT
Comparing Steve Ballmer to an Orangutan, I find is quite insulting.
Don't you think? It is a bit much.

Orangutan's are much more intelligent and deserve more respect.
View reply
A Shatner Hater LOL
by lesfilip August 28, 2006 6:56 AM PDT
Man that was the funniest post I have read in a while, but come on,
William Shatner be THE MAN. Ballmer headbutting the Astrodome...
classic.

Have a nice day!
View reply
Not a hardware company eh?
by Ian Joyner August 27, 2006 9:45 PM PDT
Strange how Microsoft claims not to be a hardware company....
until it sees Apple succeeding in a market!
Reply to this comment
Toshiba is doing Hardware!!!!
by Tanjore August 28, 2006 9:19 AM PDT
Microsoft is not doing Hardware, it is Toshiba!!!

Microsoft will provide all hardware specs to Toshiba!!!
Labels?
by rheend August 28, 2006 7:25 AM PDT
Will the music labels and movie studios put up with the Zune's sharing abilities? After all, someone will undoubtedly find a way to hack the stream and save it, effectively circumventing the DRM.
Reply to this comment
Good Question
by woody56292 August 28, 2006 8:59 AM PDT
I never even considered that. However even if the sharing abilities were hacked, it would still be less of a problem then they already face with piracy, because physical face to face transfers spread slower than internet downloads.
View reply
Toshiba's involement means trouble...
by dlebman August 28, 2006 9:41 AM PDT
Toshiba's involement means trouble...It will be delayed..so don't count on the holiday's and battery life will stink! Does the New Gigabeat ring a bell. I got tired of waiting and faliure of the promised battery life! Go with the Creative Zen Vision M! It rocks and you can have it now!
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RE: Not a hardware company eh?
by jsbrando August 28, 2006 11:23 AM PDT
I believe that the intent of the 'not a hardware company' claim is due to that profit is not driven by hardware at all at MS and that it is classified as a software company because almost all revue comes from software.

That doesn't preclude a company from being able to market hardware also...
Reply to this comment
Exploding battery's
by Peter Bonte August 28, 2006 4:34 PM PDT
Battery life will be the key issue with the Zune it seems, MS will
probably solve it with an big expensive phone battery or maybe a
small Sony Laptop battery. :D
Reply to this comment
BYE IPOD AND WELCOME ZUNE......
by shehzad August 28, 2006 4:43 PM PDT
I THINK SOME PEOPLES WHO JUST LIKE IPOD HAVE NO IDIA WHY ZUNE IS GETTING POPULAR EVEN IT'S NOT RELEASE YET. MANY PEOPLES KNOWS HOW MUCH BENEFICIALS ARE TO GO WITH MICROSOFT UPCOMING ZUNE BECAUSE IT'S WILL SYNEC WITH MEDIA CENTER RECORDED TV PROG. IT WILL ALSO USE WITH MICROSOFT UPCOMING ONLINE STORE WITH NEW AUDIO FORMAT THAN WMA. IT WILL HAVE WIFI FEATURE AN FM RADIO. SO THERE IS LOTS OF REASONS TO BUY ZUNE.I THINK IT'S COOL DEVICE AND IT WILL USE WITH MONTHLY SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES THAN ITUNES BUY ONLY. SO I WILL BUY THIS DEVICE NOT IPOD ANYMORE. BTW CREATIVE AND TOSHIBA MP3 PLAYER ARE BEST SOUNDING.I OWN ZEN MICRO PHOTO AND IT'S SOUND QUALITY IS REALY AWESOME I MEAN WAY BETTER THAN IPOD AND IT'S SAME WITH GIGABEATS TOO.
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Did your Caps Lock get stuck?
by peter.mortensen August 28, 2006 7:24 PM PDT
Zune could become another Origami project...or it could become something really great.

And who said Apple is not coming out with something that just brings them even further ahead soon? They like to surprise people like you. Surely today they totally dominate the market in terms of factual market share and accessories availability - they don't have to invest in building a market they already own >75%.

So do you have any idea of what Apple will bring to the table next? Comparing the old G5 iPod with the coming Zune is probably not so relevant.
Hmmmm
by Europodboy August 29, 2006 5:24 AM PDT
Perhaps you could try to post your comments again. This time
why not try English?
Hehehe - Origami anyone? Vista?
by daveworld August 29, 2006 5:28 PM PDT
Zune started out sounding OK when I first heard about it, but in true MS fashion, it's looking like a dud.

Wifi? - Yeah for streaming "4 promotional Songs" hehe

Made by Toshiba? - I thought this was an in-house job; the XBox team was going to have a hand in design? Doesn't look that different from the Toshiba Gigabeat now does it?. A matter of fact, the Zune UI looks the same a a Gigabeat, hehehe.

MS upcoming store? - So what happened to WMP11 & URGE that was supposed to be "iTunes killer"?

Subcription service? - Did you not read that the subcription part will be downplayed in favor for PURCHASE SONGS? Somethig to do with purchasing songs being more porpular.

Keep that attitude; MS loves the likes of you that probably already bought an Origami, with 1-2 hour battery.
bah
by kyle172 August 28, 2006 9:26 PM PDT
Type in Caps and you'll make ur self look real cool!
Reply to this comment
Back on track
by thecandyman116 August 29, 2006 2:33 PM PDT
Ok enough arguing and lets get back on the topic which I beleive was talking about the Microsoft piece of crap Zune or the so called "Ipod killer". Besides,
"killing" the Ipod is like trying to stop a freight train that is going 100 mph by standing in front of it. Impossible, I know.
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ZUNE(picture) is actually Gigabeat....
by shehzad August 29, 2006 2:57 PM PDT
Ok james kim post his comments about ZUNE current picture we seeing right now. He said ZUNE made by Toshiba and it's has same features and software which already use on Gigabeat S and it's more like upcoming Gigabeat not ZUNE. BTW Microsoft already warren there employees not to leeks the info about upcoming media device. So to me the pict we have it's not ZUNE it's Gigabeat and upcoming Microsoft media device is more cool and features full.
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ZUNE(picture) is actually Gigabeat....
by shehzad August 29, 2006 2:57 PM PDT
Ok james kim post his comments about ZUNE current picture we seeing right now. He said ZUNE made by Toshiba and it's has same features and software which already use on Gigabeat S and it's more like upcoming Gigabeat not ZUNE. BTW Microsoft already warren there employees not to leeks the info about upcoming media device. So to me the pict we have it's not ZUNE it's Gigabeat and upcoming Microsoft media device is more cool and features full.
Reply to this comment
ZUNE..........
by shehzad August 29, 2006 2:57 PM PDT
Ok james kim post his comments about ZUNE current picture we seeing right now. He said ZUNE made by Toshiba and it's has same features and software which already use on Gigabeat S and it's more like upcoming Gigabeat not ZUNE. BTW Microsoft already warren there employees not to leeks the info about upcoming media device. So to me the pict we have it's not ZUNE it's Gigabeat and upcoming Microsoft media device is more cool and features full.
Reply to this comment
ZUNE(picture) is actually Gigabeat....
by shehzad August 29, 2006 4:12 PM PDT
An FCC filing reveals that a portable media player that is most certainly the Zune is being produced by Toshiba. While this comes as a surprise, the various photos of the Zune body and interface certainly ring of the Toshiba Gigabeat S.

The device is known as the Toshiba 1089; it's equipped with a 1.8-inch 30GB drive, a 3-inch display (smallish), and compatibility with 802.11 b/g. Whether this is truly the Microsoft Zune or a Toshiba-branded version of the Zune remains to be seen, but we think that a Toshiba-produced media player running Microsoft software should be pretty nice. Read more details at CNET's News.com.

By James Kim

SO to me it's(picture) we seeing rightnow on many websites are not Microsoft media device it's actualy Gigabeat S or Zune. BTW earlier microsoft warren there employees not to leek the info about upcomin media device. It's(microsoft media device) must be realy realy cool and full with the features.
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More unwanted commercial s!
by heekesen August 30, 2006 5:25 AM PDT
As of late I noticed that everywhere on the net when there is
some viedo or sound clip I want to watch a commercial
introduction is included. And you can't skip it.

Knowing Microsoft I think that their Zune will start downloading
commercial content as soon as I enter a shopping mall, or it will
show me 'special offers' when entering a shop.

When exchanging some songs with other users/passers by the
information on the Zune will be 'shared' with a nearby shop and
commercial follow up will come!

I'd rather stick to my self-contained, beautiful and easy to use
iPod.
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Ok, Ok, follow the logic........
by grandmasterdibbler September 2, 2006 8:20 AM PDT
So you can listen to music from other people's Zune or stream to them right?
1.Won't that reduce the battery life of a device to something pathetic like 4-5 hours?
2.Assuming it doesn't mean streaming to other Zunes I have never seen a hi-fi in my life with Wi-Fi! So basically you can stream to a PC, what a novel idea.
3.If it does mean you can share music with other people there would have to be ALOT of Zunes out there to make it worth while. Say if you're on the train going to work how many people will actually use it?

Wi-Fi seems like a bit of a gimmick to me, but you never know.

We'll just have to see, oh and how can you have a vertical business model with two companies?
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