a multi-tasked stream of consciousness or perhaps just emails to myself
SJ Mercury: New Treo has problems but also possibilities. PalmOne’s new Handspring Treo 600 has almost convinced me it’s possible to merge a personal digital assistant with a mobile phone, after years of rejecting clunky hybrid “communicators” that did many things and did them all badly. [Tomalak’s Realm]
Expected complaints based on the essential nature of compromise in a converged device.
Ring-back tones are not to be confused with the ring tones that sound off when you receive a call. Rather, ring-back tones are snippets of music that are played to callers while they wait for the phone to be answered, instead of the usual ringing we now hear. [Wired News]
iTunes Catalog is a new app that will create a visual catalog of your iTunes library in HTML, PDF or XML. It has the ability to download artwork for albums automatically and apply them to your files. Looks promising… I am playing with the demo now… the full version costs $9.95.
Two MIT students who thought they’d found a way to give their fellow students access to a huge music library without running afoul of copyright law hit a snag Friday when the school shut down the service in the midst of a licensing dispute.
The “LAMP,” or “Library Access to Music” system officially went live Monday, pumping music into dorm rooms over the school’s cable television network. By sending the music over cable, rather than swapping files over the Internet, the system avoided making an exact copy of the music and was expected to face lower copyright law hurdles.
The students, Keith Winstein and Josh Mandel, said they had negotiated for the Harry Fox Agency, the mechanical licensing arm of the National Music Publishers Association, to grant a license to a Seattle-based company called Loudeye to sell the school thousands of MP3s for the system.
But even last week as the system prepared to go live, there was confusion. The Harry Fox Agency said no such license was complete, while Loudeye insisted it was. [AP NewsWire]
Julie (the Gadgeteer) has posted her review of the Treo 600 and is essentially positive though somewhat critical of the lower resolution screen (not 320 x 320) and limited bundling of additional apps.
Treo Central has a review as well of the Orange (GSM) version…