EMI and YouTube have agreed to a deal that will make EMI music videos available free of charge, and EMI music can now be featured in user-generated footage.

YouTube has now inked deals with all four of the major music labels after signing an agreement with EMI today. EMI, is the first major label to allow its catalog without DRM (digital rights management). Hope they look good on my Apple TV!

eBay has purchased StumbleUpon for $75 million. All StumbleUpon’s founders and management team will remain in their respective positions for the foreseeable future, and will focus on building out the website to expand the community. In today’s world everybody wants a social networking site.

Google has announced that Google Checkout buyers can now make fast, secure purchases using mobile devices straight from any WAP enabled Checkout merchant. The process involved in purchasing is a little different than with the online steps involved. Buyers must verify their identity with a special PIN, rather than a login. Merchants that are hooked up in the standard Google Checkout program will automatically have mobile functionality built into their existing store (including mobile-friendly sites), so no further implementations are involved.

Taking a cue from an old Apple advertising promotion Rip-Mix-Burn, that got Apple in some “hot” water with content owners. It seems RealNetwork’s CEO Rob Glaser makes the surprise announcement that their new player will allow you to “Real It In” as will be able to Rip-Save-Burn “All” online video fomats from the web. Clips from YouTube and Yahoo are easily downloaded to your computer.

Real is no stranger to going out on the fringe of copyright and legal issues. Remember Real’s attempts to “crack” and “hack” Apple’s iTunes Store bought tracks? It is to be seem what video sharing sites will think of this. Maybe Glaser has his lawyers’ retainers already paid up.
Continue reading RealNetworks: Rip-Save-Burn Online Videos…

I do not want to sound like a financial website. But Apple’s stock [AAPL] rise is hard to ignore closing today at $121.19 or 2.04% with a market value of $104.82 Billion ending the month on another all time high. Apple Inc. was added to Standard & Poor’s 100 index at the end of today’s trading day. Wall Street seems to like what the guys from Cupertino are doing lately (cough, iPhone). Shares of Apple Inc. entered the month of May at $99.80 (4/30/07 closing price).

PandoraJam 1.0 is a new $15 US (Cocoa) application allows listeners of Pandora.com Internet radio to wirelessly stream music to a home stereo (requires Airport Express), record for playback in iTunes (iPod compatible), tag recordings with album artwork and submit tracks to Last.fm.

PandoraJam also supports Growl notifications, instant messenger updates, and keyboard shortcuts. PandoraJam 1.0 is available now and has a limited free demo mode. It requires Mac OS X 10.4.

Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac now supports 3D gaming and adds a new feature called SmartSelect that allows you to “select” which application handlers what.

New features in version 3 include:

• SmartSelect allows you to set your preferred application handlers cross-platform so you decide to open URLs in IE7, mailto: links in Mail.app, or .xls files in Excel 2007
• 3D acceleration – DirectX and OpenGL support will allow 3D gamers to play Windows games at a acceptable speed
• Snapshot – back up or roll back your virtual machine
• Parallels Explorer – copy files into or out of your virtual disk images or your Boot Camp partition
• Enhanced Boot Camp support, better USB, better printer sharing, shiny Coherence 2.0

Parallels Desktop enables Intel-based Macs to run Windows (or Linux) at the same time as Mac OS X — no reboot is required, unlike with Apple’s own Boot Camp.

Continue reading New Parallels 3.0 supports 3D games and ‘SmartSelect’ Feature…

Apple is now offering two versions of the Apple TV: the original 40GB model for $299, and a new 160GB model for $399, which is shipping in 1-2 business days. I already own two Apple TVs, one with the original 40GB hard drive that is even covered by the $49 AppleCare and I recently purchased a 160GB model from PowerMax at $499, covered under a warranty from PowerMax, not Apple. Guess I paid a premium for not waiting a bit longer. This should make things interesting for those 3rd party services that can sell you pre-upgraded Apple TVs, DIY kits or overnight upgrades. By the way, I love the Apple TV, it has changed the way we watch TV at our house. Adding the EyeTV has made it really great.

In case you missed it YouTube is coming to the Apple TV in mid-June via a free software update. According to Apple Vice President of Worldwide Mac Hardware Marketing David Moody, Google is re-encoding all YouTube videos to H.264, a codec that Apple TV supports. All new videos will be converted to H.264 as they are uploaded, but it will take until fall to convert the older back catalog.

Verizon is now taking orders for its FiOS TV service in the Rockland County communities of Orangetown and Piermont, N.Y.

Comcast is set to commercially launch TiVo digital-video recorders in Boston and other New England markets in August, according to TiVo CEO Tom Rogers. TiVo just posting their Q1 financials showing a possible first-ever quarterly profit.

Google is hosting a developer day today for 5,000 developers worldwide. The big announcement will be Google Gears, an open source browser plugin that will enable developers to create offline web applications using JavaScript APIs. As a developer, you’ll be able to make an application with the assurance that it will work offline and online across browsers.

The plugin is a 700K download for Firefox 1.5+ and Internet Explorer 6.0+ that installs three developer APIs. One API will handle the creation of data objects to store application information locally, another will be a SQLite relational database for searching the data, and the final part will enable asynchronous JavaScript so applications can sync data in the background without overburdening the browser. This is an important move for Google to allow developers worldwide to help make web apps move to the desktop and further into Microsoft’s space.

Apple Inc. is making the move to Standard & Poor’s 100 index. The Mac and iPod maker will be added to the S&P 100 after trading closes on Thursday and will be replacing MedImmune which is being acquired by AstraZeneca.

Highlights of Gates and Jobs together at the D5: All Thing Digital Conference. See more of the Steve Jobs and Bill Gates Together: Part 1 of 7 interview videos.

Continue reading Highlights of Gates and Jobs at D5…

OK, I got rid of my Palm sometime ago and I do not own a Treo, but I do like the Treo and was a Palm fan at one time. With that clarified, I think I can comment on the new Foleo device on they just introduced. The Foleo is a laptop-looking device that has a 10 inch screen, I guess they expect users to carry around along with their Palm Treo. This may be the companion the Treo phone NEVER wanted!

Most users already own laptops and this thing is the size of sub-notebook like the Dell X1. Is Palm listening to their users? At $499 the Foleo weighs in at 2.5lbs, has Bluetooth for pairing with a Treo, offers built-in 802.11b/g, lacks G support, as the device is supposed to be a smartphone companion. I hope for Palm’s sake this is not their counter to Apple’s iPhone. Good luck with this one Palm!

See more at Arstechnica.

Macworld’s has provided live coverage of Walt Mossberg’s interview with Steve Jobs at the D: All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad, California. Among the highlights:

• On the Apple TV: Jobs says Apple TV isn’t a set-top box, or a set-top box replacement. It’s “sort of a new DVD player for the Internet age. ”YouTube integration coming to the Apple TV, as a free update in “mid-June” with the entire YouTube catalog being available by fall.
• On iPhone’s platform being closed: Jobs says it’s a security issue, but Apple is working to find a way to allow developers to build applications for it. Jobs says he doesn’t want the iPhone to be “one of those phones that crashes a few times a day.” He adds: “We would like to solve this problem and if you could just be a little more patient with us, we’ll do it.” Jobs says iPhone runs “real OS X, real Safari, real desktop email.”
• On iPhone allowing over-the-air video downloads: Jobs says no. It doesn’t make sense to buy media that way. Delivery over the airwaves is too costly
• On iTunes being predominantly on Windows machines: Jobs, “It’s like giving a glass of ice water to somebody in hell.”
• Asked about the Fake Steve weblog, The “real Steve Jobs admits he’s read it and finds it funny.

  See more at MacWorld and also from John Paczkowski on the official D weblog.

Apple stock has been on a tear lately with several AAPL records being set. Shares today of Apple Inc. [AAPL] gained $4.42, or 3.87%, to set a new all-time closing high of $118.77 per share on heavy volume of 52,743,517.

Shares of Apple Inc. entered the month of May at $99.80 (4/30/07 closing price). Apple’s previous 52-Week and All-Time High closing high was $113.62 set on Friday, May 25, 2007. AAPL’s all-time intraday high was set today at $118.88. Apple’s 52 Week Low stands at $50.16, set on July 14, 2006.
Continue reading Apple Shares Hit New All-time Closing High Again…

Apple CEO Steve Jobs said YouTube will soon be coming to the Apple TV via a software update in mid-June. Google’s YouTube will be offered in the Apple TV main menu. Using the Apple Remote users can browse, find and watch free videos from YouTube. Thousands of the most current and popular YouTube videos will be available at launch in mid-June, with YouTube adding thousands more each week until the full YouTube catalog is available this fall. Users will be able to navigate through YouTube’s categories and members can also log-in to their YouTube accounts on Apple TV. All YouTube’s videos are in the process of being converted to H.264, a codec that Apple TV supports. All new videos will be converted to H.264 as they are uploaded, but it will take some time to convert the back catalog.

In addition to YouTube support, Apple is offering a new build-to-order option for Apple TV. The new configuration adds a 160GB hard drive — four times the current storage for up to 200 hours of video, 36,000 songs, 25,000 photos or a combination of each. Apple TV costs $299 or $399 for the 160GB model.

Microsoft announced this morning ‘Surface.’ a multi-touch, multi-user interface, that will cost in the range of $10,000. Microsoft is touting this as the future direction for computing and will install demo units in some T-Mobile stores, Starwood hotels, and even Harrah’s in Vegas. This is “coffee-table” computing folks. Should makes the Apple iPhone look cheap and Apple proves again that it creates technologies for the rest of us, NOW. The Apple iPhone will be out next month and uses a similar “touch” technology. Although, the iPhone does not use the same method, it does seem more practical for most uses.

Fox Interactive Media (owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.) announced separate agreements to acquire media-sharing sites, Photobucket and Flektor. Terms of the deals were not disclosed.

The News Corp. unit’s owns social-networking site MySpace, which it bought in 2005. Fox Interactive Media also owns IGN.com, FOXSports.com and AmericanIdol.com.

Photobucket, based in Denver with offices in Palo Alto, Calif., claims to have more than 42 million members with 47% of Photobucket users linking to social networks such as MySpace. Fox Interactive Media claims it will keep Photobucket as a stand-alone site while also integrating its technology and tools across other Fox Web properties.

Continue reading Fox On Media-Sharing Buying Spree…

Last.fm has been acquired by CBS, a company who had the first commercial radio station in the US, ran a record label (CBS Records). The price is reported to be for $280 million for the music and social network site.

The Last.fm online network was founded in the UK about five years ago and it now has more than 15 million active users. It allows users to connect with other listeners with similar music tastes, to custom-build their own radio stations and to watch music video-clips. Gee, wonder if Pandora is next?

Continue reading iTunes Tip #49: Don’t Share DRM-free iTunes Tracks…