Map Of Zunes

It was a few months back when we first saw reports that Microsoft was looking for an ad agency to promote the "pink" project. Well the good news is, that agency has recently been chosen. According to a recent article...

I had to say something other than live, released seems to convey the same message. Me (Matt Akers) and Jessica Zahn are back in yet another blockbuster episode of the Zune Insider Podcast! We talk about the late King of Pop, and a new playlist in the Marketplace that celebrates his music. We talk Zune Pass and how it changed our music consumption habits. Our buddy Fred from the Xbox Ops team drops by to talk about his awesome orange Zune 30 and all the eclectic music on it. I give away something dear to my heart and answer a hot forum topic. We also talk about some new videos in the Marketplace as well as other random tidbits of information that we know you love to hear! Go get it!

Listen on the web here. Or, better yet, subscribe here.

Oh wait, almost forgot! Here are a few links to some of the amazing music that Fred discusses in our interview (and some comments). Consume away!

Fear Nuttin Band: Yardcore

Listen to all of it.

 

Gotan Project: Inspiración-Espiración

“Round about Midnight”

 

Michael Brecker: Now You See It… (Now You Don’t)

Listen to “Peep” or “Minsk”, and then the rest of it.

Another week, another couple of rumours about the forthcoming Zune HD. First up, price points: the 16 GB and 32 GB capacities seem all but confirmed at this point, and now Electronista has some information about the price point of the 16 GB Zune HD being between $249 and $279 USD. The price point make it a little less expensive than the 16 GB iPod Touch, which is a good move for Microsoft. No word on the pricing of the 32 GB Zune HD, but I'd guess we'll see it in the $349 to $379 realm. There's also a rumour about a 64 GB Zune coming "down the road", which isn't shocking - this is all about the price point of Flash, nothing more. Microsoft could release a 128 GB Zune HD, but it would probably cost $899. So for all of you who have full Zune 120s, this is not the device for you.

Moving along to the issue of battery life, we have (supposedly) a Microsoft employee who likes to blab to a fellow named Ryan Rea (Volvoshine), and the result is a claim of 5x battery life over the current iPod Touch. The iPod Touch 2nd gen unit is rated for 36 hours of audio or six hours of video. If the 5x factor proves to be true, on paper at least we'd be looking at 180 hours of audio or 30 hours of video. That seems virtually impossible - I'm expecting to see some battery life gains by moving to the OLED screen and the Tegra chip, but 5x? I'm calling hoax on this one. I hope I'm wrong, because that kind of battery life is game-changing, but when something seems too good to be true, it usually is...

This is a bit off topic for some sites in our network, but a good deal is a good deal: our hardware affiliate partner Expansys is selling the Linux-based version of the Acer Aspire One for $199, which is an excellent deal. This version of the Aspire One has an 8.9 inch screen, 1 GB of RAM, a 120 GB hard drive, and uses the 1.6 Ghz Intel Atom CPU. Combine that netbook with a $49 copy of Windows 7, and you've got yourself a nice little piece of mobile computing technology (just be sure to also have an external USB-based optical drive). I haven't installed Windows 7 on an Acer Aspire One, but I suspect it would work just fine - Windows 7 identified all the important hardware on my MSI Wind and HP Mini 1000 netbooks without a problem. At the time of this writing, Expansys only has 58 left in stock, so don't delay.

After much speculation, some details are coming out about the ZuneHD. The initial capacity for the ZuneHD will be 16 GB's. This is expected to go for somewhere between $249 and $279. A 32 GB, and even a 64 GB...

Howdy folks, we're back again with another action packed episode of the Zune Insider podcast! This week we have a couple of special guests from the team drop by. Josh Vincent, a program manager on the Zune Software and DJ extraordinaire, and podcast guru Rob Greenlee. We'll talk about DJ life, life on the Zune team, and we'll also sample a few of Rob's favorite podcasts. We even have an extra special surprise courtesy of Rob, niiiiice! As usual, we'll also talk music, videos, and other items of great randomness. Awesome!

Get your Zune Insider fix on the web here, or subscribe here.

Cheers!

This week brings two Zune Marketplace freebies that you can download, play back, burn to a CD, and sync to your Zune device. You'll need a Zune account to download the free content. Clicking on the link(s) below will automatically launch the Zune software and take you to the artist's page, so please ensure that the software is installed on your PC.

• Title: Hold the Line
• Artist: Major Lazer, Mr. Lex & Santigold
• Genre: Reggae/Dancehall
• Length: 3:39
• DRM-free MP3: Yes

• Title: Heavy Cross
• Artist: The Gossip
• Genre: Rock
• Length: 4:02
• DRM-free MP3: No

You'll have to excuse the network-wide broadcast (well, except Apple Thoughts of course), but I thought this was something that everyone would want to know about: Microsoft is offering the forthcoming Windows 7 at a steep discount, but only for a limited time. Until July 11th, you can purchase Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade for $49.99 USD (that's an Amazon affiliate link, so your purchase helps support Thoughts Media). The normal price of Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade is $119.99 USD, so that's a very significant level of savings ($70 to be precise). You can also pick up Windows 7 Business Upgrade for $99 if you want that version. When Windows 7 is released on October 22nd, Amazon will ship you the software.

The Windows 7 upgrade will work on a computer with Windows Vista or Windows XP installed. If you have an older computer, you may want to run the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor to make sure your computer is ready for Windows 7, but in general any computer built in the past four years should be able to run it just fine. Windows 7 is lighter on resources and works well across a broad spectrum of hardware.

Got a netbook? Then you'll want to take advantage of this offer as well - I'm running the Windows 7 Release Candidate on an MSI Wind, and an HP Mini 1000, and it works really well on both of them. I think Windows Vista is a fine operating system, but Windows 7 is even better - it addresses many of the concerns that people had with Windows Vista and adds a degree of polish that means everything is easier to use.

Unfortunately, this offer is only valid in the USA and Canada (Canadians can order from Amazon.ca, Future Shop, and Best Buy). as far as I can tell. Europe is getting a different version of Windows 7 due to the lawsuits Microsoft is undergoing there.

We here at Zune are saddened by the news of the passing of pop legend Michael Jackson.  At this time of shock and grief we would like to point our Zune users to some of his groundbreaking chart-topping hits and tribute audio podcast called “Thrillercast” in our Zune Marketplace software, published by Sony BMG. 

The “Thrillercast” podcast is made up of 28 episodes and in each episode celebrities like will.i.am, LL Cool J, Herbie Hancock, Imogen Heap, Adam Curry, Quincy Jones and many others tell stories of how Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” album changed their lives and impacted music for generations to come.  Thriller was the world’s biggest selling album of all time.

You can listen to the podcast right from our Zune.net website or download our Zune software to find his great music.

 

Gizmodo got a tip about the release date of the new Zune HD, including this cool product shot below:

They're saying the device will launch on September 8 and come in 16 and 32 GB varieties, which jibes well with what we've heard so far.

Meanwhile, Engadget's got a video hands-on with the device and photo gallery including shots of the dock. There's no music loaded so we can't see all the cool improvements in that department (check out this older video to see some of them), but if you needed another look at the power of Tegra, it's still as awesome as ever. Also, the last frame in the video shows that Internet is indeed a top-level menu item, not hidden in "more" as previously thought. Personally, I'm interested in the promo pictures behind the album art while playing music (see the picture, above). I think it would be really cool if it had a smaller version of the Now Playing visualizations that the software has featured since v3; it really does feel more engaging with the music you're listening to.