Sony challenges iTunes with its new Qriocity music service

Screen shot of Sony's Qriocity
(Credit: Sony)

Sony wants to take back digital music from Apple. 

The creator of the Walkman says it is ready to challenge iTunes, forge ahead into music streaming, and also put its doomed prior attempts to build iTunes-killers behind it. 

Today, Sony unveiled a new cloud music service in the US that will play songs on a mix of Sony devices, such as the PlayStation3, Bravia TVs, and Blu-ray home theater systems, as well as a range of Sony's portable devices. The service is called "Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity," and hopefully the service is less clunky than the name. 

For US$10 a month, Qriocity subscribers get access to music from four record labels and 6 million tracks. Music will be streamed from Sony's servers to devices so users don't have to worry about clogging hard drives and Sony won't have to worry about building any complicated software platforms (we'll get back to that). Qriocity scans a user's hard drive and then provides access to songs from their media libraries, including Apple's iTunes. 

Qriocity, which Sony first touted at the IFA electronics show in September, has all the standard bells and whistles for music services today, such as a song recommendation engine. What it doesn't have is the ability to enable users to listen while unconnected from the Web. How could the maker of the Walkman, one of the great portable music devices of all time, disregard mobile like that? 

Sony's answer to that is "wait and see." Qriocity is just the start. This time around, Sony's strategy to taking on iTunes is to first focus on the home. When it comes to music, that is an underserved area, Tim Schaaff, president of Sony Network entertainment told CNET. 

In addition to relying on a streaming service, a feature that Apple hasn't offered yet but is expected to get into, Sony has built Qriocity on the PlayStation Network, an established digital marketplace. 

"The PlayStation Network has been in the marketplace since 2006," Schaaff said," and has been growing customers for four years. There are 70 million accounts worldwide... It is has gaming, music, movies and all kinds of e-commerce. It is a stable business, and rather than starting from scratch, we decided to leverage that." 

Is iTunes vulnerable?

That's a much different direction than the one Sony chose for the doomed music service, Connect. In that case, Sony tried to go toe-to-toe with Apple by creating an iTunes-like media hub, and Connect became one of digital music's all-time great Titanic stories (Read John Borland's superb narrative for CNET about what went wrong with Connect). The effort was marked by internal bickering and turf battles, the kind of dysfunction between Sony's content, hardware and software divisions that the company has been noted for in the Internet age. 

Connect was stillborn on release, brought down by software glitches. 

Sony tried to save face by keeping the service around a couple more years, before finally shutting it down. 

How will Sony fare better this time against iTunes? Apple's music service now has an almost decade-long record of thumping challengers, including MTV, Virgin, Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL, MySpace. 

For starters, Qriocity is a service closely linked to Sony's hardware, and the company has 350 million Internet-connected devices out in the wild now, Schaaff said. That means the company can enlist a legion of merchants, who sell Sony products, to help Qriocity "tell its story," he said. 

Another important factor is Sony's timing, which, Schaaff argues, is spot on. iTunes has never appeared more vulnerable than now, said Schaaff, who once ran Apple's QuickTime division. 

The iTunes software has become an almost unbearable drain on computer power. More importantly, the public seems to have lost interest in buying downloads. Schaaff also thinks Sony is a different company than it was in 2005 when the Connect program was begun. 

"I think the conditions here today are extremely different," said Schaaff who wasn't at Sony during the Connect debacle. "We all have the same goal and we have the full support of [Sony CEO Howard Stringer], who has given us the resources we need." 

"Maybe," Schaaff added, "Connect taught us some important lessons." 

Via CNET News

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Apple to turn MobileMe into film, music hub?

Apple may turn MobileMe into digital shelves where iTunes users can store electronic books, songs, and movies. 

MobileMe is an online storage locker, a service that enables users to keep calendars, address books, and email on Apple's servers. In the future, Apple could turn the service into an entertainment and media hub, where users maintain their digital music and video libraries, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. 

MobileMe costs US$99 annually to use, but Apple may turn it into a free service, the Journal report. 

Computing done over the Internet is commonly referred to as taking place in "the cloud" and this is where the next generation of digital entertainment is supposedly headed. Cloud services are supposed to free up hard-drive space on consumer PCs while providing users the ability to access content from wherever they can connect to the Internet. Google is also working on a cloud music and video service, the sources have told CNET. The search company could be ready to launch a music service within the next several months, sources said. 

If we do see an iTunes cloud service, it will come as the growth of song downloads has slowed to a halt. According to Nielsen SoundScan, overall US music sales fell 2.4 percent last year while digital track sales grew only 1 percent. 

Early last year, sources in the film and music industries told CNET that iTunes executives had discussed building a cloud service. Since then, Apple hasn't done much to license movies, TV shows or music for the cloud, the people familiar with the talks said. 

Meanwhile, the Journal also reported that Apple is working on a less expensive, smaller version of the iPhone. Days after Bloomberg reported that the new iPhone would be one-third smaller than the iPhone 4, the Journal reported that the device would be about half the size. 

Offering users a means to store digital video and music isn't new. In video, adult-film companies, such as Pink Video and HotMovies.com, have already staked out turf. Music services such as Lala, the struggling streaming music service that Apple acquired in December 2009, had built a niche following partly by offering users the ability to store songs on the company's servers. 

At the time of the Lala acquisition, many observers speculated that Apple wanted the music service to help create its own cloud. It appears now that managers there may have chose to stick with homegrown technology in MobileMe. 

Via Crave CNET

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Is it the end of the road for the iPod classic?

The iPod classic appears to be in short supply. That could mean one of two things.
(Credit: Apple)

The site AppleBitch has an interesting tidbit on the status of the iPod classic, as supplies appear to be dwindling at various US retailers. Target and J&R don't seem to have any in stock and Amazon, which has the 160GB Classic on sale at US$229.99 (best deal), lists shipping times at "two to four weeks". 

The initial speculation is that Apple might be on the verge of updating the Classic now that Toshiba has recently updated its 1.8-inch iPod-size hard drives to 220GB. The Classic was last updated in September of 2009 and never got a bump in Apple's last update to the iPod line in September of last year. 

Of course, the other possibility is that Apple would finally retire the iPod classic as it continues to move toward flash-based memory in its devices, including the MacBook Air. That said, we still feel there's a nice niche for the iPod classic for music hoarders with huge collections and hope Apple doesn't put it out to pasture. Anybody else feel the same way or should we not care if it goes away? 

Via Crave CNET

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Sony NGP vs. Nintendo 3DS

(Credit: Sony)

January hasn't even come to a close and we've already been introduced to two brand new portable gaming systems--one from from Nintendo and one from Sony. 

At a press event in Tokyo yesterday, Sony revealed its latest endeavor in the portable gaming world with what it is calling the "Next Generation Portable." Boasting PlayStation 3-calibur graphics, two cameras, 3G connectivity, Sixaxis controls, and two touch-sensitive areas, the NGP looks nothing like any of the so-called leaked photos that have circulated on the Internet and is clearly not the same as the Xperia PlayStation Phone. 

Now that we know what we can expect from both companies, let's take a look at how the two portable systems stack up. 

Hardware

It's safe to say the specs Sony has thrown around will clearly outpace the 3DS, as was the case with the companies' last generation of portables. However, as we all know, these details did not have any effect on sales. Sony has taken a page out of the Nintendo DS' book with its touchscreen and pad features, but it's far too early to be able to fully grasp what these details really mean for gamers. The Uncharted gameplay video we posted earlier shows a few ways these gestures might be implemented. 

The NGP showcases a 960 x 544-pixel OLED screen, which isn't quite high enough of a resolution to call it portable HD gaming, but judging from videos that are beginning to surface, it's safe to say titles will look spectacular. If the 3DS' main selling point is 3D, we'd imagine the NGP's is its ability to render close to PS3-quality games. 

The 3DS and NGP are heavily focused on connectivity, with both systems utilizing Wi-Fi, but the NGP will also allow for GPS, Bluetooth, and 3G data service. In response to the 3DS' Street Pass and Spot Pass player-matchmaking features, the NGP seems like it will revolve around location-based multiplayer functionality with a social feature called Live Area. 

The NGP does appear a bit bulkier than the original PSP, as Sony has once again opted for the brick design. Its two analog thumbsticks are also a very welcome addition, as the PSP only featured one. On the other hand, the 3DS will introduce the first-ever analog stick on a Nintendo portable, located just above the D-pad. 

Both devices have rear- and front-facing cameras, with the 3DS able to shoot and display 3D photos. We're a little cloudy on the extent of the NGP's camera functionality, but with 3G connectivity, the possibilities certainly seem endless. 

New to Sony is the NGP's touch abilities which feature a front screen and rear pad that react to finger gestures. The 3DS' lower screen keeps the touch functionality found on all DS devices, but will still require a stylus for most applications. We really think the rear touch panel on the NGP has potential especially because it allows players to interact with the screen without getting in the way of one's line of sight. (More on the two touchscreen technologieshere.) 

Games

Word is the NGP will utilize flash storage-based games and will have backward-compatibility with original PSP and PSOne games that can be downloaded to the device through the PlayStation Store. Sony also said that the NGP may have the ability to play ported versions of PS3 games. 

We know the 3DS is backward-compatible with DS and DSi downloadable games, and will offer Game Boy titles through a 3DS online store. 

In terms of which franchises gamers can expect on the NGP, Sony has announced support from series like Uncharted, Killzone, Wipeout, Resistance, LittleBigPlanet, Hustle Kings, Hot Shots Golf, and Call of Duty as well as new titles such as Little Deviants, Reality Fighters, and Gravity Daze. 

Launch and launch window titles for the 3DS include games like the Dead or Alive Dimensions, Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D, Pilotwings Resort, Nintendogs + Cats, Madden Football, and more. We've got some impressions of these games from last week's 3DS event. 

The outlook

Sony has really loaded up the NGP with a feature set unlike anything we've seen on a portable gaming machine, but it will be interesting to see how developers and gamers utilize these tools. Sony notably left out a price for the NGP, but we're hoping the technology inside doesn't push it over the US$300 threshold. 

Nintendo will have a healthy head start as the 3DS hits the US on March 27 for US$250. While Sony left out a price tag for the NGP, anxious gamers can expect to get their hands on the device this holiday season. 

Without a doubt, 2011 is shaping up to be a make-or-break year for portable-gaming-centric devices, with products like the iPhone and iPad creeping their way into what has historically been a binary market. Will the public embrace the 3DS and NGP and match sales of the last generation, or will the emergence of Apple's casual gaming offerings turn this into a bloody battle to the death? 

Via Crave CNET

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Powerbeats by Dr. Dre too handsome for gym?

(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)

Headphones aimed at the fashionable consumer are not in short supply these days, but one would think the last place people are concerned about gadget style would be the gym. However, plenty of manufacturers are banking on the belief that you want good-looking tech no matter how sweaty you are, hence the Powerbeats by Dr. Dre Sport Headphones from Monster. These US$150 earphones offer a secure fit, integrated iPhone controls, and a sleek look--but they're also pricey for workout headphones, and they don't seem particularly durable or sweat-resistant. 

Read the full Powerbeats by Dr. Dre Sport Headphones review. 

Via CNET

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