Webware

The Zune HD's mobile Web browser includes a search feature powered by Microsoft's Bing search engine.

(Credit: Donald Bell/CNET)

Last Tuesday, I shared my positive impressions of the mobile Web browser Microsoft is including in its upcoming Zune HD portable media player. What I didn't share (not because I didn't want to) were the photos I took of the Zune HD browser in action.

The following photo gallery includes four shots of the Zune HD browser doing its thing. The first shot shows the browser in portrait mode, the second shot shows how bookmarking is handled, the third shot shows Facebook in landscape view, and the final shot demonstrates the keyboard in landscape mode.

That last shot shows off another feature Microsoft has been keeping under wraps--Bing. Yep, the Zune HD's Web browser includes a search button for instant queries using the Bing search engine. Granted, it's not an earth-shattering or completely unexpected announcement, but it's one more detail for all the Zune fans and haters to sink their teeth into.

Hands-on look at the Zune HD Web browser--photos

Note: Tune in to CNET Live at noon Tuesday (August 11, 12 p.m. Pacific/3 p.m. Eastern) to watch a live episode of CNET's MP3 Insider podcast, with special guest Brian Seitz from Microsoft's Zune team and Zune Insider blog. He'll be bringing along a Zune HD and taking a few questions from the CNET Live chat room.

Music and Web surfing mashup Songbird is out with an impressive number of features that were missing from the last major update. For Windows, Mac, and Linux, version 1.1.1 introduces album art downloading, MTP device support, watch folders, improved sorting, and numerous other performance enhancements and bug fixes.

Album art comes to browser/jukebox Songbird.

(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)

This version continues to push the more iTunes-esque feel of the jukebox/browser, but that's a change users will just have to get used to. Grabbing context-menu album art worked quickly, although users should remember to highlight an entire album to get the art to apply to all tracks. If you only remember to do that after the fact, select all the tracks and run the album art finder again to apply the art to all of them.

The album art feature doesn't work perfectly, though. Although users can replace album art through a track's metadata pane, if you resize the art window in the main dashboard the art itself won't resize. A minor bug, but slightly annoying.

The MTP device support includes the ability to sync DRM-restricted songs between Songbird and your portable media player. Zunes, Sansas, Zens, and others can now be used in conjunction with Songbird. The entire list of support MTP devices and known issues can be read here.

Using Watch folders to monitor regularly changed folders is one way to monitor for new songs or removed albums, but it also makes managing a third-party podcast catcher significantly easier. Setting this up takes a bit of hunting and pecking, but it turns out that the option lives under Tools/Options/Media Importer; then click on the Watch Folders tab. Note that this is a fairly sophisticated watch folder system, and it will remove from your library what you delete, as well as making additions.

Watch folders make it easy to keep your library free from detritus.

(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)

Some of the other changes include replay gain normalization, so if the metadata includes that information, Songbird will now play back the song as you intended. 'Bird-watchers who've been frustated with the unicode and sorting support should find big improvements in handling indefinite and definite articles at the beginning of song, artist, and album names.

There's also support for the 7Digital online music store, which offers high-end MP3s up to 320Kbps. The Mac download size has been reduced by 45 percent, and the memory usage in large libraries has apparently been reduced significantly. I encountered no stability or playback problems running Firefox, Songbird, OpenOffice, Thunderbird, and other programs simultaneously.

If the first two programs you start up are your Web browser and your music jukebox, and not necessarily in that order, Songbird keeps getting better and is worth a look.

Rob Bennett knew people were going to be angry.

Bennett is the Microsoft executive who notified former customers of the now defunct MSN Music service on Tuesday that the company would no longer issue DRM keys for their songs after August 31. This means that, while former customers can listen to their music on authorized computers for as long as the hardware lasts, they won't be able to transfer songs to a new PC after that deadline.

In an interview with CNET News.com, Bennett said that continuing to support the DRM keys was impractical, that the issue only affects a "small number" of people and that focusing exclusively on Zune was the best way to go. He also noted that it wasn't Microsoft's decision to wrap music into digital rights management.

The reason for shutting down the DRM-licensing servers was "every time there is an OS upgrade, the DRM equation gets complex very quickly," said Bennett, general manager of entertainment, video, and sports for MSN. "Every time, you saw support issues. People would call in because they couldn't download licenses. We had to write new code, new configurations each time...We really believe that, going forward, the best thing to do is focus exclusively on Zune."

Microsoft shut down MSN Music in November 2006, following a failed effort to turn the site into a legitimate iTunes challenger. Redmond threw its resources behind the Zune digital music player and its music store, Marketplace.

For the past 18 months, Microsoft has continued to enable former customers of MSN Music to move their song libraries to new computers. Discontinuing that service has been widely criticized. Critics have long said that DRM was a means to control legally purchased music at the expense of consumers. To them, the current situation with MSN proves it.

Bennett defended Microsoft. He said the company never wanted DRM on its songs.

"Had we had the ability to deliver DRM-free tracks at the time, we absolutely would have done that," Bennett said. "We talked to the labels at the time about that. As a company, we have continued to push for this. Zune has a subset in their catalog of DRM-free MP3s. Now, the industry is making progress. The labels are understanding the downside of DRM when its used the way they wanted to use it, they end up punishing the users who bought music legally more than those who want to circumvent the system."

Bennett added that Microsoft believes in protecting intellectual property, but the company also wants people to enjoy their media without unreasonable restrictions.

"No one ever foresaw being in this situation," Bennett said. "It's not something we like to do. We want to make it easy and as painless for our customers as possible. We really feel, in the long term, what's best for people who want to buy music from Microsoft is to move to Zune."

Bennett said that former MSN Music customers can back up their songs by burning them to CDs. But what about the loss of sound quality should they decide to rerip the music?

"We (delivered) music at 160 kbps," Bennett said. "In my personal (experience), you're not going to lose that much fidelity."

The Zune hearts content, but how many people heart the Zune?

(Credit: Microsoft)

Microsoft may be putting together an "entertainment marketplace" tentatively named Zune VideoX, ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley reported Wednesday. In other words, it's yet another digital content store trying to take a bite out of Apple's iTunes.

Joe Belfiore, corporate vice president of Microsoft's Devices and Entertainment eHome division, is reportedly spearheading the project. But it goes without saying that as with any of these "iTunes killers" that seem to pop up like mushrooms after rain, well, it's going to be an uphill battle even for Redmond.

Creating a solid digital download store is something that Microsoft has tried repeatedly, and hasn't gotten right yet. Its Zune Marketplace hasn't exactly been a resounding success. There has also been chatter about something called "eLive," a marketplace of digital download content--music, video, games--for Zune digital media players, Windows-based PCs, Xbox gaming consoles, and Windows Mobile smartphones.

"eLive was renamed and recrafted to Zune VideoX," a source told Foley, "and the eLive vision scaled down to focus on Zune." Really? That's too bad. The Xbox has been a much more resounding success than the Zune, and it already has the successful Xbox Live Marketplace as a starting point.

That said, there's reportedly a third-generation Zune coming next year. And on another note, can somebody please outlaw the term "iTunes killer?"

Update 5:30 p.m. PDT: Microsoft plans to announce the second generation of Zune digital music players on Tuesday, according to a source close to the company.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates is supposed to take part in the formal announcement of the new music player, the Web site BetaNews reported on Monday. A source with knowledge of the announcement confirmed the report when contacted by CNET News.com.

The upcoming player, which will be available in November, will be the first Zune to feature flash-based memory, BetaNews reported.

The site also said Zune's flash-based players will measure 3 inches by 1.25 inches and the device will look very similar to the iPod Nano.

A Microsoft spokesman did not immediately reply to an interview request.

Welcome to the social? Not exactly.

I spent a week trekking around San Francisco, Zune in tow, hoping to find more of the players to share music with. I nearly gave up in failure but finally found one other Zune on my downtown expedition.

It's early on, of course--the Zune has only been available for around a month. Still, one of the main reasons Microsoft is hoping that consumers will opt for the Zune over the iPod is the MP3 player's wireless sharing feature. And, as I found out, it's not much use if there is no one to share with.

Microsoft says that part of the problem is that many of the Zunes that have been sold are sitting under Christmas trees, so maybe I'll have to retrace my steps in January.