Episode 0004,
Welcome to Course Technology's CourseCast of the Month, Episode 4, for April 2007.
This is Ken Baldauf with more technology news and information targeted at college students.
This CourseCast is brought to you by Course Technology. Check out www.course.com for innovative textbooks and creative electronic learning solutions for higher education.
EMI, Apple To Sell DRM-Free Music for $1.29/song (TechCrunch)
Microsoft sees DRM-free music in Zune's future (c|net)
We kick off this episode with good news from the digital music world!
It's official! EMI and Apple have partnered to offer EMI's entire digital music library through iTunes without any DRM strings attached. Ever since music first became available to purchase and download online, way back in 2001, the recording industry has insisted on applying Digital Rights Management to music files. Digital Rights Management, or DRM, limits the customer’s ability to copy the files. Music from EMI and iTunes, stripped of DRM, will enable consumers to make unlimited copies of the music to any music player or media---just like standard MP3 files. However, unlike standard MP3 files, the new DRM-free files will employ 256kbps AAC encoding for a higher quality sound. iTunes shoppers will have the option to choose the old inferior-quality files with DRM for 99 cents or the new higher-quality recordings without DRM for $1.29. If you buy an entire album, the price will be discounted.
For the time being this only applies to music produced by EMI and sold through iTunes. However, with over 1,300 recording artists in its catalogue, EMI holds a significant chunk of the market. It's hard to say if any of the other major labels, Universal, Sony/BMG, or Warner will follow EMI's lead in stripping DRM from their music. Microsoft has indicated a plan to follow Apples lead in partnering with labels to offer music without DRM for its Zune player, but has not said when that might happen. It is clear that the new EMI and Apple deal has placed pressure on their competition to follow suit. If the public reacts favorably to the new format, the pressure will increase. It should be noted that some online services, like emusic.com, have been selling DRM-free music for a while, but offer a more limited selection.
College grads' prospects improve: survey (Reuters)
Senate bill gives Americans preference for tech jobs (c|net)
Our next story brings good news for college students getting ready to graduate.
An annual survey by Monster Worldwide Inc. found that seventy-six percent of employers plan to hire 2007 graduates this spring and summer. This is up four points from last year. The survey results also reveal that many employers run a Web search on prospective employees to find out more about them. Students in the job market should make sure that a Web search on their name doesn't uncover anything embarrassing.
Graduating students in the
Yahoo to Remove Limit on Storage (nytimes)
Yahoo! has upped the ante by offering their email users an UNLIMITED amount of storage. Citing the high storage requirements of media files, and the low price of storage, Yahoo! has decided that their users should never again need to worry about deleting old e-mail. Yahoo's competitors Microsoft and Gmail provide 2 GB and 2.8 GBs of storage respectively.
New Bar Codes Can Talk With Your Cellphone (NYTimes)
Our next story comes from this week's New York Times.
Wouldn't it be great to be able to point your cell phone at a movie
billboard to view the movie trailer on your cell phone? Or point and click with
your cell phone at a magazine ad to place an order for the item advertised?
People are already doing this in
“Everything in the physical world has information related to it somewhere electronically,” claims Chas Fritz, chief executive of NeoMedia Technologies, a company developing these cellphone technologies. NeoMedia uses a new kind of bar code to connect cell phones to online content. Rather than the usual zebra stripes, the new system uses square-shaped mosaics of black and white boxes that can hold much more information than traditional bar codes. Check out the article linked from the CourseCast Web site (coursecasts.course.com) to see what the new codes look like. A code is scanned using your cellphone's camera, then special software on your phone downloads related information, video, music, or text to view and listen to on your phone.
A for sale sign in front of a house could include a code that house hunters can use to view the asking price, the number of bedrooms and baths and other information. Any place you find an ad: billboards, bus stop benches, newspapers, even t-shirts, could include a code to scan.
Wireless technologies such as RFID are being experimented with for this use
as well. But many feel that the bar code method will be faster and cheaper to
implement than RFID. Only time will tell which catches on in the
MIT to offer its courses free online by year end (Yahoo/Reuters)
Have you ever considered taking classes at MIT? Soon you'll be able to - for
free! Reuters reports that by years end the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology will be the first
We finish up this CourseCast with four short stories.
Hackers Pull Off Biggest Heist in History (NewsFactor)
An article from NewsFactor.com describes what they call the biggest hacker heist in history. Hackers have stolen data from at least 45.7 million credit and debit cards owned by shoppers of TJX companies such as T.J. Maxx and Marshalls. Visit tjx.com and read the "Important Customer Alert" if you think you may be a victim.
Google Hangs Up on Mobile Phone Idea (NewsFactor)
Contrary to last month's rumors, Google executives have gone on record saying that the search giant has no plans to become a phone manufacturer.
Apple's iPhone will be released on June 11 (c|net)
Waiting for Apple's iPhone? Cingular has announced June 11 as the date that the iPhone will become available.
YouTube to offer video for mobile users (ComputerWorld)
Soon you may be able to watch YouTube videos on your cell phone. YouTube said it will launch a mobile Web site to allow its mobile partners to integrate YouTube videos into their offerings.