Anyone who does research on any frequent basis can attest to the fact that pay-walls are the bane of their information-seeking existence. In a move sure to please not only lovers of info-pr0n, but regular users as well, the New York Times has decided to drop it’s pay-wall for accessing historical articles, Op-Ed pieces, and other special features. While this is all well and good, the move is a little less than altruistic on their part: they finally realized that the ad revenue to be gained from the locked-up content was greater than they could ever expect to get from subscribers.

Content wants to be free, and gets its wish tonight at midnight. [via]

Lots to talk about in the world of Apple/Music/Television/Digital Distribution/DRM/good tofu recipes. The NY Post is reporting that Amazon will launch a Music store with non-restricted MP3s available.

The store will offer songs in the iPod-friendly MP3 format and give consumers who use the popular music player an alternative source for major label music besides Apple’s iTunes.
The current thinking on a launch date for the Amazon MP3 store is the week of Sept. 17. However, industry insiders aware of Amazon’s plan caution that it remains a moving target. Amazon has already pushed the timetable on the service’s introduction multiple times.

It’s expected to launch around September 17th with about 1 million tracks from Universal Music Group, EMI and independent labels excluding Sony BMG and Warner Music group. Albums are reportedly going to cost $7.99 and $9.99. It looks like the once invincible iTunes is seriously getting some competition.

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NBC Universal on its warpath against Apple is ending its iTunes after December. Now I think this is a classic case of “cutting off your nose to spite your face.” Apple is NBC’s biggest video supplier, which even eclipses their free Flash player, but NBC is arguing that it wants to bump prices and Apple doesn’t.

I understand the need for a company to make money, and I understand Apple’s desire to keep a universal price structure. But we have seen Apple has bent the rules when it comes to music pricing, so let them bend the rules for video pricing. If NBC wants to charge $50 an episode, so be it – then the consumers will flex their muscle in not buying the content.

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For those who missed it Halo has gone Golden Master:

Halo 3 for Xbox 360 has gone Gold! That means we delivered a final version to our internal certification group that passed all the tests and is now being whisked away to top secret manufacturing locations to be turned into retail versions of the game – and eventually packaged and sent to stores in various cases, tins and cat-helmets. We can’t wait to share it with you guys on September 25th and 26th, but we have to say thanks.

We have to say thanks to everyone at Bungie who worked so hard to make this the best game we’ve ever made. We have to say thanks to everyone at Microsoft who helped us make it the best game we ever made. We have to say thanks to our tireless team of artists, designers, engineers, musicians, technicians, writers, directors, producers, thinkers, administrators, ninjas, specialists, gorillas, webmasters and pimps. We’re a family and we made this game for you, our extended family. We hope you like it. Nobody deserves any more recognition than anyone else, but an extra special thanks goes out anyway, to the test team who got it to this stage, in a pool of their own sweat, tears and blood.

And of course, we wouldn’t be here today without the tireless devotion of our fan community – we thank you all as well for supporting Bungie Studios in our never ending quest for World Domination and we look forward to sharing another billion+ hours together on Xbox Live when Halo 3 lands in just a few short weeks. The wait is almost over.

We Finished our Fight. Your fight begins in 27 days.

Are you ready?

Are you preordered?

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The Threadless $10 sale is Baaaaaack!

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Capcom has stated that they will start dropping titles for the Nokia N-Gage in 2008. We checked and no, it’s not April 1st, so it must be true.

“Capcom is dedicated to creating great mobile games, and believes that N-Gage will allow us to bring some of our most famous franchises to the platform. Our dedication to quality and creative thinking has seen the company produce a series of ground-breaking titles, with stunning visuals and in-depth game play, never before seen on the mobile.”

The thing to note though is that N-Gage as we knew it is dead (duh) and the name is actually used to describe a gaming service for Nokia Nseries phones. Had this not been the case we would have assumed that Capcom lost a bet in a drunken developer game of Poker where the highest bid they could make was to attempt developing games for the N-Gage. Games such as Resident Evil and Street Fighter should see the light of day in 2008.

As a long-time Pandora (music genome project) fan / user, I was ecstatic to find out that I could literally take all of my favorite playlists with me on my iPhone or iPod with PandoraJam. Bitcartel Software, creators of ComicLover and RadioLover, have created yet another sure favorite for recording streaming audio from Pandora.

PandoraJam enables fans of the fantastic Pandora.com music service to easily listen, record and stream tunes to an Airport Express. With support for scrobbling tracks to Last.fm, PandoraJam is essential software for net music lovers everywhere.

I’ve been running the software for the past few days enjoying my customized playlists while online and off.

Until this morning, I was sure that Blockbuster was gunning for Netflix in the home movie rental delivery service. What with Blockbuster advertising the ever so attractive deal of 3 movies delivered to your home + unlimited in-store rentals, it seemed as though Netflix was on the losers side of the fence. But like I said, I had assumed all that until this morning.

Arnold emailed Blockbuster support inquiring about recent changes to his plan:

I have been a Blockbuster subscriber for over 7 months. Prior to that, I was at Netflix. My Netflix account is currently suspended (meaning I don’t pay anything, but I still have my account history and I can turn the account back on at anytime).

I do not agree with the recent email from your company telling me about my plan changing. In January 2007, I signed up for Unlimited Online DVDs up to 3 at a time plus UNLIMITED in-store exchanges plus one coupon for game/video rental. I want to keep my current account as-is without changes. Please let me know if you can accomodate this request.

Joyce (Blockbuster Online Customer Care) writes:

I’m very sorry if you feel that way about our new plans, Arnold. Like all retail businesses, we must periodically review our pricing structure. In introducing a wider range of subscription plans, we considered a number of factors related to online memberships including in-store activity on a given account. We’re giving our most frequent renters like y ourself the option of either continuing with similar great benefits at a higher price point or moving to a new plan if you’d like to continue your membership at a lower price point and agree to limited in-store exchanges. Additionally, our envelopes are now valid for discounts on in-store game rentals. Unfortunately, eCoupons are no longer available.

Essentially, what Blockbuster is saying is that anyone who rents too many videos can either choose to upgrade their plan (pay more) to do so, or slow down their rental activity. Boo on that Blockbuster.

Yesterday, Walmart began offering DRM free MP3 files from both EMI and Universal Music. DRM free songs cost costs 6 cents more then the DRM poisoned WMA files (94 cents vs. 88 cents), but still cheaper then iTunes. Great deal right?

Few problems though, Walmart’s music store ONLY works with Windows and still has some DRM and Active X controls until you purchased the DRM free media.

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Microsoft has reportedly set into motion a plan to rename the 360 Core edition to the Xbox 360 Arcade to better compete with the Wii. The Xbox Live Arcade will sport a 256MB memory card and five pre-loaded titles from the XBox live service two of which are Pac-Man Championship Edition and Uno. The newly renamed system will also bundle a wireless controller instead of a wired one. Now word on when the system will launch.