Engadget Blogged about how to squeeze 14 hours of battery life out of your Zune…
“Here at Engadget, we’re all about squeezing every last drop of functionality from our gadgetry, and to be honest, Microsoft’s Zune needs all the constringing it can get.”
“Zune has a battery life of up to 13 hours, when listening to music. Oh. . . and that
’s with the wireless turned on.” Yeah right! Analysis of the claimed battery life, and a look at what we can expect from realistic use. Try 6-7 hours!
read more | digg story
The Zune is coming, but not “zune” (gettit?) enough - I’m dying to get my hands on one. 
I’m counting down the minutes until November 14th…. at least you can always preorder the Zune at Walmart.
Here’s a picture of the unannounced Zune speaker by Altec Lancing. Looks damn cool.
read more | digg story
Asked how much money Microsoft will lose per Zune, Ballmer said, “None.”
“Apple put the hammer down there, dropped the price [of its 30GB iPod] down to $249,” he continued. “If they had been $299, it would have been nicer. They have the advantage of scale. So we’re at $249, too. We don’t make a lot of money, not to start out.”
read more | digg story
Cesar Menendez, our brother blogger over at Zune Insider, was nice enough to invite us to a little Pre-Zuning at the Souped Up Cafe, where he was holding a little meet-up for all the Zune fanboys in the Seattle area.
read more | digg story
“At first glance the features seem compelling but my prediction is it will be the biggest flop of 2007 with less than 50,000 units sold worldwide.” Also, says Robertson, “I’ve been looking for a good verb to describe losing all of your music to DRM because it’s increasingly common and I think I have one: zune.”
read more | digg story
BoingBoing Reports…
Microsoft Zune will violate Creative Commons licenses
The new Microsoft Zune player (their so-called “iPod Killer”) applies DRM to all the files you move onto it, even the Creative Commons-licensed music. The problem is that CC licenses prohibit this.What’s more, CC licenses are machine-readable and could, theoretically, be detected by Microsoft, if they cared enough about copyright to ensure that they were adhering to the license policies set out by creators.
Read the full story on Boing Boing
The hype is that the Microsoft Zune will be preloaded with all sorts of goodies. Here is an unofficial list of what will come preloaded with brand new Zunes…
Music
Band of Horses, “Wicked Gil” (Sub Pop Records)
Bitter:Sweet, “The Mating Game” (Quango Music Group)
CSS, “Alala (Microsoft edit)” (Sub Pop Records)
Darkel, “At The End of The Sky (edit)” (Astralwerks)
Every Move a Picture, “Signs of Life” (V2)
Small Sins, “Stay” (Astralwerks)
The Adored, “Tell Me Tell Me” (V2)
The Rakes, “Open Book” (V2)
The Thermals, “A Pillar of Salt” (Sub Pop Records)
Videos
30 Seconds to Mars, “The Kill” (Virgin Records)
BT, “1.618” (DTS Entertainment)
Chad VanGaalen, “Red Hot Drops” (Sub Pop Records)
Coldcut featuring Roots Manuva, “True Skool” (Ninja Tune)
CSS, “Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death From Above” (Sub Pop Records)
Fruit Bats, “Live: The Wind That Blew My Heart Away” (Sub Pop Records)
Grandaddy, “Elevate Myself” (V2)
Hot Chip, “Over and Over” (Astralwerks Records)
Kraak & Smaak featuring Dez., “Keep Me Home” (Quango Music Group)
Kinski, “Live: The Snowy Parts of Scandinavia” (Sub Pop Records)
Paul Oakenfold, “Faster Kill Pussycat (Featuring Brittany Murphy)” (Maverick Records)
Serena-Maneesh, “Drain Cosmetics” (Playlouderecordings
Movies
5 Boro: “A New York Skateboarding Minute” (Skateboarding)
Radical Films: “Kranked — Progression” (Mountain Biking)
TGRTV The North Face (Skiing/Snowboarding
And a bunch of images to customize your Zune backgrounds etc.
Cnet News Reports…
Microsoft’s forthcoming Zune player is shooting to be the life of the party, allowing users to create mobile social networks and stream music to nearby friends or strangers, according to a government regulatory filing.
Zune owners can act as their own DJ, sending streaming music content to up to four other devices, according to documents filed with the Federal Communications Commission . With the device’s wireless networking abilities turned on, people can send and receive photos, as well as “promotional copies of songs, albums and playlists,” according to the filing, made public Thursday.
Hardware maker Toshiba, which is manufacturing the Zune device, was the company that filed the FCC documents. The documents refer to the device and service alternately as Zune and by two code names, Argo and Pyxis.
A Microsoft representative confirmed that the filing is legitimate and that Toshiba will manufacture the Zune device, but declined to offer additional details or comment on the information in the FCC filing.
