Well, it is official with the Google press event wrapping up we know Google Music is official. With the online search giant dropping the beta tag and expanding its tendrils into the music industry by netting deals with major labels like EMI and Sony, it is shaping up to into quite the iTunes competitor.

Google Music will allow users to upload up to 20,000 songs and stream them in 320 Kbps quality from pretty much any device that has a web browser. Best of all, all of this new found Google Music action will remain free!

In addition to music labels being added to Google Music, some integration with Google+ was announced as well. Google+ users can share songs and entire albums with other Goolge+ users whom in turn are given one full free play.

Not to veer too far from the topic — Google+ is shaping up to be a very robust social medium. We like what we have seen so far and are looking forward to the months ahead to see what additions Google+ and Google Music will receive.

The new service is officially live at music.google.com as is the official Google Music Android app.

Well be giving Google Music a thorough testing over the weekend. Look for our Google Music “review” early next week.

In the meantime…Let us know your thoughts in the comments!

Pulse was a paid app that pulled news stories from the NYT’s actual feed as well as many other news outlets. The NYT’s complained to Apple about the whole paid/copyright issue and Apple complied, removing Pulse.

The real problem here is this: There’s thousands of apps and services across multiple devices and platforms that do this very same thing. Limiting it to Pulse (which until now didn’t have a ton of publicity) doesn’t make sense. Then again, decisions from dying, bassakwards businesses rarely do — hence their down-spiraling.

The devs behind Pulse have stated that they’re simply going to remove the NYT’s feed from the app and re-submit. Good for Pulse, bad for NYT. Though if the NYT is trying to distance themselves from the digital mindset that is increasingly overtaking society, so be it. NYT who…?

**Update: And just like that — Pulse is back in the App Store. However, how it got back so quickly is unbeknownst to us…and Pulse. According to co-creator Akshay Kothari, they haven’t the slightest why it’s back again. Perhaps Apple realized the ridiculous claims made by the NYT, hmm?

Consumerist
TechCrunch

Unfortunately, it’s a load of crap for all of AT&T’s customers who wish to use such a feature legitimately. The response also doesn’t give any indication or clue as to when we can expect such a feature either. It seems Ralph de la Vega’s comments in 2009 of iPhone tethering “coming soon” were full of hot air. I understand the much needed boost in network resilience, but going on 12+ months, come on…


And yet tens of thousands of users actually interested in tethering will continue to wait. In the near term, the iPhone 4.0 hardware will hold them over, giving them new reasons to be excited again.

On a side note — Ralph de la Vega laughed at questions today regarding the iPhone, AT&T, and what will happen when AT&T loses that exclusivity over Apple’s Jesus Phone. He claimed that over 80% of AT&T iPhone users are on family or business plans and therefore would make actual jumpers pretty small. I’ll admit, he has a point. But if T-Mobile, Sprint, or Verizon were to get their own version of the iPhone and AT&T continues to botch iPhone tethering, I see quite a bit more switchers making the jump than AT&T cares to acknowledge.

Thoughts?

Macworld

WFXL-TV is as I understand, the first News station to toss out paper scripts entirely and adopting the latest in technology — the iPad. Doing so, according to news station staff, will save the station upwards of $24,000 annually…

I know some of you are thinking: “Why not get a computer?” Well, the iPad is cheaper, smaller, and offers extended opportunities by way of app potential down the line. It’s really a no brainier.

As far as work is concerned, script writers/editors do nothing more than email the finished copies to the iPads as PDF’s. On the news anchor’s end, iAnnotate apps allow quick and natural navigation of the scripts. The apps weigh in at a paltry $7. Simple and effective.

Saving vast amounts of money, trees, and bambi’s is a pretty sweet deal don’t you think? It’s nice to see technology changing things even as simple as news scripts. Hopefully more news stations (and industries no less) will “come of age” and adapt more useful types of technologies.

Fark > Poynter

John Stewart’s message to Steve Jobs and Apple (InOtherNews):

“Apple – you guys were the rebels, man, the underdogs. People believed in you. But now, are you becoming the man? Remember back in 1984, you had those awesome ads about overthrowing Big Brother? Look in the mirror, man! …It wasn’t supposed to be this way – Microsoft was supposed to be the evil one! But you guys are busting down doors in Palo Alto while Commandant Gates is ridding the world of mosquitoes! What the fuck is going on?!

…I know that it is slightly agitating that a blog dedicated to technology published all that stuff about your new phone. And you didn’t order the police to bust down the doors, right? I’d be pissed too, but you didn’t have to go all Minority Report on his ass! I mean, if you wanna break down someone’s door, why don’t you start with AT&T, for God sakes? They make your amazing phone unusable as a phone! I mean, seriously! How do you drop four calls in a one-mile stretch of the West Side Highway! There’re no buildings around! What, does the open space confuse AT&T’s signal?!

…Come on, Steve. Chill out with the paranoid corporate genius stuff. Don’t go all Howard Hughes on us.”

Gizmodo

Rupert Murdoch and many other news sites fail to see this. They seem to think simply slapping a price on their content will add value and entice people to pay up. While it is true that some will move over to digital subscriptions, many will not. It’s called a business model. The traditional print media is banking on an old, outdated, and dying one.

The point? Rupert Murdoch is a well known media big wig — operating NewsCorp which itself is a massive media company. His daughter — Elisabeth Murdoch, whom runs a TV production house — is more or less in the same business. A business field that suffers from growing pains moving to the web also. But her approach to the whole concept of digital information is far more enlightening:

“Fans remain the best salesmen of our content, even if that behavior is on the borderline of piracy. Danger of the new world is that we must concede that we’ll lose some control.”

Simply put, her comments are in start contrast to the countless claims and accusations by her father show that those who’ve been in the business for any length of time have little hope of “coming around”. In the digital age, we need more forward thinkers like Elisabeth Murdoch and less of those like her father. I’m not saying ban all monetary payments online. That’s silly. Instead, I’m saying don’t be so god damn greedy, adapt to the changing market, and stop labeling people and companies who help your business (such as Google, social networking sites, and so on) as thieves and criminals. It’s really not the best approach.

Paywalls and overly restrictive false barriers do nothing but erode and destroy the very principles of the internet.

TechDirt

Naturally, a feed reader is important and required as scouring 200+ sites would take far too much time to be of any benefit. So Google Reader it is. The versatility of GR is great. I can import my GR feeds to countless desktop and mobile applications as well as easily access my feed library anywhere else in the world by simply going to Google.com/reader.

Today marks another notch in the belt for el Googs and their little wonder reader as it now features the ability to automatically create feeds from websites that don’t have them. Now, manually doing such things isn’t that hard but does involve extra clicks and steps I simply don’t have time for. It may seem silly but it’s the truth. Dynamic and on-the-fly feed creation is a blessing.

I now ask you the question, how beneficial do you find this new Google Reader feature. But we don’t all use GR for our feed reading. In that case, what floats your boat?

RedFerret

Travel back in time inside your mind to November 25th when we touched on fellow tech blogger Geeky-Gadgets’ less than stellar interaction with the App Store and the mindless idiots who run it.

November 4th: App Submitted / November 25th app rejected

If you remember, the original Geeky-Gadgets app that was submitted on November 4th was rejected because of the contest category and some BS rule in the iPhone SDK that prohibits including or linking to such things. “Fair enough” said Ronald, editor of Geeky-Gadgets. To him, getting any app onto the App Store was more important. Ronald instructed the developers to abide by Apple’s rules and resubmit the app for approval. To recap, the original app was submitted November 4th and this first rejection/letter came on November 25th.

December 16th: rejected

Many more days went by as Ronald waited impatiently for any sign of progress. On December 16th that progress finally came — in the form of another rejection and accompanying fix. This time, Apple also wanted the contest category and any contest keywords removed as well. This problem Ronald admits, was more so his fault for not removing all contest material the first time. Again, the app was fixed and resubmitted.

December 21st: rejected

And so it continues, December 21st brings another email detailing another stupid ass example of Apple’s inconstancy and incompetence: the use of the word “Apple”. According to the SDK:

Applications that contain terms, product names, brand names, or entities in their search criteria that are registered trademarks not licensed or owned by the submitter cannot be posted to the App Store. It would be appropriate to remove “Apple”.

That’s all fine and dandy and I don’t have too much problem with the word “Apple” now being used as long as common sense is used. The problem however is that their consistency sucks and as we’ve seen countless times, common sense is sorely lacking. Do a quick search on the App Store for tech blog iPhone apps and notice how several other apps include the use of the “Apple” keyword. The dumbest thing is, apps such as the Geeky-Gadgets iPhone app weren’t using it in any manner that was questionable, illegal, or for self profit. They were simply narrowing down readers’ options by offering up a fucking keyword….

They removed the Apple keyword.

December 30th: app approved

When Ronald logged into his developers account this morning, he was greeted with some much happier information — the Geeky-Gadgets app had been finally been approved posted. However, the ironic, slap in the face, knee jerking, face palming kicker is that Apple used the original Geeky-Gadgets app screenshots — the ones that include the Contest Button which Apple made a big fuss about as the basis for their first rejection — nice.

Overall, the last nearly two month journey has been a nightmare and again, illustrates how clearly broken this App Store approval process is. On one hand I almost want to give Apple a little credit for “constant” updates starting with the second rejection. Then again, if this process wasn’t such crap, we wouldn’t be having this conversation in the first place.

While I still have my old iPhone relegated to mobile gaming/internet usage (my old trust iriver ihp-120 is my mp3 player of choice for sound quality) and still enjoy interacting various aspects of the iPhone/App Store ecosystem, I thank my lucky stars every day that I dropped the hot mess that the App Store/iPhone/AT&T shit hole has become.

You may be asking “Why?” Why am I spending so much time and thought on a process involving an app and situation that isn’t my own? It’s not necessarily the app or people involved as I’ve never met any of the Geeky-Gadgets crew (though sharing a similar interest for all things geeky and gadget I’d consider us at least distant friends — perhaps a family member twice removed on the in-laws side…)? It’s the process and situation as a whole that sucks. It sucks and more people need to know it. Not to tarnish Apple or destroy their business yadda yadda yadda. Instead, hopefully rising amounts of criticism will get them to actually do something about it and improve Apple/developer relations and communication. That would be the ultimate goal.

It’s been a long trek through this stockpile of words and I’m sure you’ve got something on your mind. Leave it below.

Geeky-Gadgets

The weather widget is rather simple and shows the city, current conditions, and temperature while the news widget is a bit deeper allowing customization showing/hiding various news categories and even creating your own. Overall it’s a nifty download worth installing. Get on it folks.

**In order to install the 2.1 Google News/Weather widgets, Navigate to Settings > Applications and check “allow install of non marketplace apps”.

• Download Android 2.1 Google News/Weather widgets from DroidForums

Download it and give it a go.

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Here in the states, media moguls are actively looking for ways to set up paywalls, decrease ease of use, and overall stifle innovation and the flow of information via the declining greatness called “the internet”. BBC is a European media giant and one of the best shining examples of how free news works. Well, it isn’t exactly “free” in the sense that it’s state funded. Still, end users don’t actively pay up to read as no unsightly paywall is blocking access. However, that could all change soon as complaints increase against the media giant. You see, because it is state funded, having such a wide reach of content (a dominating reach at that) is setting the site up for anti-trust and monopoly concerns. So much so that BBC chairman Sir Michael Lyons has stated that “they” are actively looking at areas of BBC Online that can be scaled back while not diluting the brand or service as a whole. A mighty tough claim as the removal of any feature often results in less functionality or usability.

In an age where stubborn and backwards thinking businesses are rushing to their old comfort of charging through the nose for everything, seeing BBC even contemplating lightening it’s load for any reasons is slightly disheartening. Any UK readers want to weight in further?

TechRadar

In the case of Mr. Murdoch, he sadly shows us that time and time again he has no clue how to use or market himself or his businesses on the internet. His latest comments and thoughts in a recent interview with Sky News Australia (video inside) clearly show he is taking his services and content in the wrong direction…

The scariest news however is that he states once paywalls have been set up for all News Corp content, Murdoch will seek to have all of it’s content pulled from Google’s search indexes. He goes on to rationalize his stance saying that the digital world has created “unloyal readers” and that search engines are the prime supporter of this behavior. Um, earth to Rupert, the internet is a completely different landscape than the traditional print world you’ve excelled in thus far. It will never be susceptible to the same business models as old print media and will never work with old rigid models retrofitted. The way news is increasingly being consumed today is via bulk. Readers want to have as many articles as they want in front of them and selecting a few to read. This quest for “loyal readers” won’t come by locking them on the outside. It will instead send them to other media outlets who will gladly offer up the very same content for a lesser price. The sooner he and his posse realize this the better.

If you want people to actively read your content and become engaged, forcing them to pay up before they ever get a preview (and no, a stupid, small little “preview paragraph” doesn’t count) isn’t likely going to sit well with the emerging generation. What happens when all of those readers pass and the newer, more technologically competent generation don’t even give your site a second look because they can’t even find it or articles when searching? Creating new readers requires content to be openly available for all to see, not locked behind some paywall. Other media outlets and start ups will surpass News Corp in time as they continue to lock themselves down tighter and tighter, pushing away any new readers even remotely interested in their content. Even though it’s been said countless times already, it must be reiterated — If you have to protect your business model by extreme amounts of restrictions, paywalls, and rules, you do not have a business model to begin with. Not exactly the way to run a technologically sound and proficient company now is it?

Alley Insider

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He seems to know what he’s doing too. With over 300,000 Twitter followers and a pretty big backing, I can’t deny that I’m rooting for him. You see, the problem is that old news and news organizations think they “own” the news when in fact they can’t and never will. News is not something you own. Any person can recycle the news to anyone they please. The fact that so many organizations and leagues think they have a right to deny a simple human being the right to tell another human an interesting story means that these oppressive organizations and leages have no right to be in business. Period.

The news, and the world on a larger level is moving online, going digital. Holding yourself back while at the same time trying to hold others back will only harm you and your colleagues. While such people and companies continue to struggle to make a buck, the intelligent and technologically competent will easily pass these old timers and introduce new, innovative and more consumer friendly services.

+1 Chad Ochocinco — Power to the people!

ESPN

• Customers who already subscribe to Cablevision TV or Newsday print papers can access Newsday online for free.

• New customers who do not subscribe to either Cablevision or Newsday products will pay a $10/month fee

Seems reasonable for a paywall scheme does it not? Well, they got part of it right — current customers of Cablevision or Newsday do in fact get access to Newsday online for free. New to the Newsday online scene are ya? That’ll be $5 — per week. *rolls eyes*

Are they trying to kill themselves? If you block off new subscribers who simply don’t want Cablevision TV service or an actual Newsday print paper showing up at their door step by charging them for online access, they’re just going to go elsewhere. If your business — the newspaper industry — isn’t doing so hot, bringing in new customers to would seem like a pretty high priority. I guess Cablevision didn’t spend that long talking to newspaper industry sources when they originally purchased Newsday and admitted they had no idea on how to run a newspaper business. Mass defect coming soon.

TechDirt

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Bing is about to get a couple more tools in it’s fight for a larger slice of the search market share. Qi Lu, Microsoft’s president of Online Services is set to announce at Web 2.0 summit impressive though separate business deals with both Facebook and Twitter. Real time search via big search players is coming. Bing will be the first to offer such a convenience. The benefits of real time results form Facebook and Twitter integrated into your “normal” search results have some big positives. Most notably, having up to date information at any point at your finger tips opens massive doors. No longer will search results via search engines (well, Bing anyway) consist of solely outdated, delayed information. In a way, it’s like an extension of Twitter — giving you a way to not only see real time information about your search topic, but also deeper, less time sensitive information right along side. After the these two features go live, Bing will be getting another looksie from myself as this whole integrated real time search hoopla has me quite interested. You?

**Update: At the same Summit 2.0 event where the Bing/Twitter/Facebook deal was announced, Marissa Mayer also announced a similar deal between Google and Twitter. Select Google searches will now be accompanied by Tweets via Twitters real time stream. Now that the field is a tad more level, who are you going to give your support to?
All Things D

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Arnteriksen