iLounge

“Back in 1999, researchers at Compaq designed a 30 Gbyte portable music player that weighed 9.5 ounces, could fit in your pocket and had 10 hours of battery life. The Personal Jukebox - aka PJB - went on sale for more than $500, and Compaq received a handy patent for its work.

But the PJB is not all that interesting in and of itself. Plenty of companies were busy working on their own music players at the time. The demand for such devices was pretty clear, as consumers rushed to organize their music on PCs and wanted a way to carry the tunes around. [...]

The only explanation for HP’s iPod lust is that it was the easy way out - the road least invented. [...]

HP’s decision to pick up Apple product points to nothing less than a failure of the company to capitalize on its own invention. In addition, it shows HP’s unmatched readiness to ignore in-house IP at the very moment a fledgling market looks promising.”

“Apple Europe has confirmed that it will offer Europe’s iPod owners battery replacement and AppleCare packages “soon”, following its move to do so in the US last year. Online campaigners have criticised the usable life of Apple’s music player, complaining that its battery last just 18 months. This allegation is open to question, but Apple is responding to meet its users’ needs, the company’s moves suggest.

Apple’s European PR manager Alan Hely exclusively told Macworld: “The iPod Out-of-Warranty Battery Replacement Program recently launched in the US will soon be launched in Europe. So to will AppleCare for iPod. “The move means readers who bought an iPod last Christmas can protect their music players. UK and European iPod owners will be able to use the battery replacement service “should they experience a depleted battery”.

As with any Apple Protection Plan, AppleCare for iPod will be available for iPod customers within their one-year limited warranty. This means “customers can protect their iPod by buying AppleCare for iPod at a later time when it becomes available in Europe”, Hely said. European pricing has not yet been announced. “

“According to The NPD Group, music downloading via peer-to-peer (P2P) services increased 14% from October through November of 2003. That followedsix straight months of decline during the Recording Industry Association of America’s (RIAA) legal campaign against pirates, which has so far resulted in more than 300 lawsuits.

Russ Crupnick, vice president of the independent NPD Group, says there may be several reasons for the uptick in downloading. Among them: the inevitable dropoff in publicity from the RIAA’s campaign, more leisure time for students during the holidays, and the launch of several high-profile legal music downloading services.”

“Kenswil [Universal Music’s eLabs president] spoke at the well-attended Music and Technology conference at the Royal Society in London yesterday. His assessment of a Q2 rollout for Apple’s music store was shared by representatives from BMG, EMI and other smaller labels represented at the show who were spoken to by Macworld.

He said: “As far as we know, the deals for Europe have been done, all the agreements are in place to introduce services here.”“