Posts with tag download
Those new handsets rolling out of KDDI's labs already have plenty of ways to get music bought and stored, but they're about to get one more thanks to an agreement with Sony. The basic idea is that KDDI phones and Sony portable and home systems with digital music capability will be able to exchange music, and while handset-to-PMP interchange doesn't seem particularly useful, we can definitely get behind an initiative to let users immediately move tracks purchased on their phones to their Sony mini systems when they get home. There isn't any detail here on just how the DRM is all going to play out, but with Sony taking a step back from the online music store biz as of late, it's entirely possible that the purchases will come exclusively from KDDI's end. Look for free software upgrades to enable the action starting this December.
We know, this whole Vista-friendly Palm Desktop software was supposed to be launched, you know, about the same time as Vista itself, but we suppose late is better than never in this scenario. Without further ado, users yearning for a Vista-compatible flavor of Palm Desktop can finally claim their prize -- if you're down with betas, that is. Thankfully, Palm has made sure you're well aware of the limitations found in the software's current state (at least the ones it knew of), so be sure and give those instructions a once over while the 59.2MB file transfers over to make sure you don't fudge anything up.
While Microsoft sure has its hands full with that other search engine, it looks like the mobile flavor of Windows could be getting a welcomed extra. Apparently, a questionably obtained CAB file has been acquired that enables users to vocally search for terms on Live Search for Mobile, and better yet, to input text via your voice "on any field that supports text entry." Of course, the application is indeed stuck in beta, which practically guarantees that you'll hit a few bugs if you load this up, but if you've got nothing to lose or you just can't resist a good challenge, be sure to give it a whirl and let us know how it goes.
Although this certainly won't go down as the first attempt to integrate cellphones into discrete marketing, Japan's largest online shopping mall operator is apparently taking advantage of the country's oh-so-superior handsets and offering up tantalizing "promotional videos" for consumers who snap pictures of ads. Rakuten is reportedly set to hand out thousands of pilot issues of a magazine, Zero90, in hopes that mobile-wielding readers will snap photos of certain articles in exchange for a 
Now that the dust's settling in the wake of Nokia's Loudeye acquisition, Sony Ericsson reckons it's time to get down to business on their own direct-to-phone music downloads. The service (which they've previously alluded to) will be called M-BUZZ and will use its PlayNow service -- currently focused mainly on ringtones and games -- to get content onto the Walkman phone of your choice. Actually, that's not quite true: M-BUZZ will initially be rockin' only on the W850 and W950 series; not quite the sweeping, retroactive compatibility we'd have liked to see, but with the W950's generous legroom for tunes, we do think they picked the right launch phone. Sony Ericsson's saying they'll be first focusing on "new and up-and-coming artists" out of Sony / ATV's library (read: crap they can't find any other way to sell?), but they seem to be leaving themselves the option of significantly expanding the catalog if the service takes off.
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