The Wall Street Journal is reporting this morning that Microsoft submitted a filing to the Federal Communications Commission. The filing suggests that the company might add some version of phone service to its ‘hand-held media players’ known as the Zune.

Microsoft will submit a prototype to the agency. The Zune already has WiFi capability and a new Phone + Zune combo Ph + une = Phune could provide a device to compete on some levels with the iPhone. It might also be an opening salvo in Microsoft’s never ending race to continually play catch up with other companies that have tested the waters first.

The filing indicates that the new device will utilize OFDM, which is a routing technology capable of moving TV and voice calls between devices. Maybe Zune will abandon the Phune concept all together and focus on the potential to virally transmit Microsoft Soapbox videos on its Zune.

That would at least spare everyone another silly sounding gadget name.

Technorati tags: Zune, Microsoft, Microsoft Phune, fcc, bad gadget names like Zune iPhone and Phune

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This week Steve Jobs came out with a letter to the world expressing the concept that he thinks that Digital Rights Management DRM is essentially a waste of time inspired by a reactionary Music Industry. He published his letter on his website and laid out the case against DRM and as a side point against the record industry that requires DRM.

Just a couple months ago Bill Gates invited a number of bloggers for a one on one personal dialogue. He intimated his distaste for DRM then as well. Recommending that music shoppers should burn music from CD’s as opposed to buying music with DRM, like the music offered at his Zune online music store. He essentially said the same thing that Steve Jobs is saying now, but a little eloquently.

With all this talk from the head of two of the companies that are so much at the heart of DRM through their media player software and now also through their physical media players, it seems as if they are starting to publicly state their opinion and acknowledge their agreement.

In private if they were to sit down and choose a course to act together or against individually the music industry, even when consumers benefit this would be considered collusion. However, free speech is still allowed in many forms throughout the US, and so both leaders are allowed to express their opinion publicly, even though it allows them to confirm with each other that they are publicly on the same sheet of music. The end result is the same as they can choose their direction knowing the move of the other, but the record industry also benefits from seeing the telegraphed signal as well.

This might be the beginning of the end of DRM as we know it and that can definitely be a good thing for consumers wallets, what it will do to and for the record industry and the TV and movie industry remains to be seen.

Technorati tags: apple, steve jobs, bill gates, DRM, digital rights management, collusion

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James Gray, a winner of the Turing Award and Microsoft researcher, has been missing since January 28th after he went sailing to scatter his mother’s ashes on a set of islands near San Francisco Bay.

Private planes and the US Coast Guard searched but found nothing, so friends and family gathered their tech resources together.  A collaboration of NASA, Amazon, Google and Microsoft brought together satellite and high-altitude reconnaissance pictures.  These photographs were loaded up to Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and through a website shared on the net so that volunteers could help to review the pictures and flag potential tiles of pictures for experts to review. 

Over 100,000 photographs and counting have been reviewed so far, but James has not been found yet.  The collaboration and use of technology however stand as a very interesting monument to the support to help James and the potential of bringing together people through online resources.  As a former intelligence analyst, I find it extremely impressive how many images could be reviewed in a short amount of time by so many people.  The effort is amazing.

here is an example of what volunteers are able to do as they can through the images.

A user will sign in to Amazon, review the picture quickly, accept it if they want to officially review it, then click yes or no if they see something or not.  Plus they can write in a comment if they need to for the experts review.

Join the Search

I only hope that Mr. Gray will be found or rescued safely.

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Depending on your perspective you may be chagrined to learn that the latest version of Apple iTunes 7.02 does not function with Microsoft’s new Vista OS.  Apple is recommending that iTune users should not upgrade to Vista yet.

The first question is just who is incompatible with whom?

Is the new iTunes incompatible with Vista?

or

Is the new Vista incompatible with iTunes?

The answer to that question probably depends on your perspective and priorities in life.  If iTunes is more important then the second and if not then the first.

The second question though could be more interesting.  Is this some type of anti-trust move by Microsoft to block out iTunes from its market dominating Operating System base.  This would then allow Vista to potentially make way for more Microsoft OS users and fewer Mac users, while simultaneously opening the door a crack for Zune?

or

Is this some type of anti-trust move by Apple to block out Vista from its market dominating iPod user base?  Could they be opening the door to convert more people away from Microsoft’s Operating system and over to Apple’s OS and machines.  Will Apple make iTunes compatible with Vista prior to the release of Apple’s new Operating System expected this summer?

Prediction

Both companies are playing a game of chess against each other and the answers to all of the questions above would be the same, Yes!

Technorati tags: Microsoft v Apple, Microsoft, Apple, iTunes, Vista, Zune, Antitrust

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Bryan Lee, the soon to be former Vice President of Microsoft entertainment will leave the big Butterfly in the next few weeks.  Lee was the leader in charge of the Zune device release last November.

While the device did make it to market, it was not a blockbuster by any stretch of the imagination.  Better WiFi media players were on the market 2 years ago.  However, Microsoft did try and it was Lee’s experience coming out of Sony that the Butterfly counted on to come up with a way to sell Zune’s.

iTunes sales do not make Apple much money, but the availability of the music inspires people in part to buy their MP3 players and deal with the ludicrous exclusivity of file formats that only work on iPods.  So Microsoft should have had a leg up on Apple with a device that would not provide such a closed system, until they closed the wireless system.

The device could not download songs intuitively from the internet and songs that were shared from one device to the next could only be listened to 3 times, so you better hope that you stopped that Zune and didn’t mute it or you might miss your buddies favorite song recommendation all together!

Lee seems to be receiving much of the criticism on his way out as Microsoft’s golden child J Allard (right) will assume full responsibility for the device.  Allard headed up the Xbox device launch and was infamous for saying he would rather buy an Apple than use the Microsoft OS on the drawing boards, which was later scrapped as Microsoft restarted the project and ultimately came up with Vista.

So why didn’t Allard step in this time and say he would rather buy an iPod and set this device on the right track? 

Well for one thing, they didn’t have a working Apple model to benchmark.  Unfortunately, they missed the working benchmark that was on the market a year ago from Sonicast and Tao.  It worked just fine and could have shown the Zune a thing or two about ease of use.  Microsoft should have just bought the rights or bought the entire company rather than waste all that time on R&D and benchmarking.

Open note to Mr. Allard, drop me an email and I’ll put you in touch with the right people.  Then you can prove yourself the hero and start ordering office furniture for the COO office in Butterfly headquarters.

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