You won't need software anymore to buy songs from iTunes. iTunes will just be on the web—you'll be able to buy and listen directly, through search engines or other sites, much like you can with Lala now. Or if you're not familiar with it, think about the way Amazon is embedded on the internet, and imagine that for music, through iTunes. It's a kind of ubiquity would make the biggest music store in the world even more influential and intractable, a fact that's not lost on record labels.

It's an uprooting of the entire iTunes model: Not only would you buy songs and manage your iTunes library through the web, iTunes could shift to having a serious streaming component, away from "download to own," as Apple's been evaluating the impact of Pandora and Lala on iTunes, though the WSJ is more tentative on this point.

Also, you may very well be able to put your music in the cloud. Essentially, you would own right to listen to the song anytime and anywhere, not just the digital file you downloaded. There's also a chance that Apple will use Lala's ability to scan your current music library, match it up with the files on their servers, and give you access to the songs you already own anywhere via its servers.

Two mildly tangential points: Lala Chairman Bill Nguyen appears to be heavily involved in the new effort, making joint calls to the labels with Apple's Eddie Cue, indicating it's a classic Apple tech-and-brains acquisition, and the WSJ backs up the previously rumored $80 million pricepoint, saying Apple paid $85 million for Lala.

This whole iTunes revamp could happen as early as next year, although there's expected to be some pushback from a music industry already cowed by Apple's strength. But Cupertino's been keeping the major labels on life support for so long, there's just not much they can do about it. [WSJ]

Ultimately, Ubuntu Netbook Remix 9.10 did the best, and openSUSE 11.2 also did well. But Chrome OS performance was far from spectacular. That shouldn't be a huge surprise, though. It's not slated to ship for like a year, and its performance should pickup as builds continue. The main surprise looks to be Moblin 2.1's comparatively slower speed, despite Intel's efforts to optimize it for netbooks. It looks pretty, though.

All distros were tested with default configurations/packages, except for Chrome OS. They "needed to remount the root file-system in a read-write mode and add in the standard Ubuntu Karmic package repositories for which Google's operating system is based."

The Phoronix test suite included H.264 video playback, OpenArena, LZMA and 7-Zip file compression, IOzone, PostMark, WAV to OGG audio and H.264 video encoding. Full test results at: [Phoronix via Slashdot]

1. First and foremost, do you "get" what Google is trying do do here? Does it make sense? Is it a good idea?

2. Google OS will be available first on netbooks, and only netbooks starting in a year. Do you think netbooks will even be relevant a year from now?

3. Google also mentions that the first generation of the Chrome OS will focus on secondary machines. Do you even have a need for a secondary machine, or is one computer with a traditional OS enough?

4. Google notes that web browsing is the most important function of a computer . Without it, many of us probably wouldn't use a computer for much in the first place. So my question is, how much of your time spend on a computer is completely offline?

Google Cuts Price of Online Storage by 800%

You know how sometimes the new version of a product will offer 50% more, for the same price? And how you think that's such a great deal? Well, Google just stomped all over your puny 50% upgrade by bumping their online storage to a ridiculous extent. Now you get twice the amount of storage for a quarter of the old price. That's right, that's eight times more for the same amount of money. For those that are having trouble with math, that means the storage now costs $5 a year for 20GB of space, and you can buy up to 16TB at that rate. If you're looking to store stuff in the cloud, this is a pretty killer deal. [Google]

Apple Updates Genius Bar Reservation System

Apple's Genius Bar is a pretty good system, although the first time I went they told me to arrive 15 minutes before my appointment, like the fact that their 6-week-old, $1500 product spontaneously broke was somehow my fault and not something for which they should accommodate my schedule. They're tech support guys, not doctors, right? ANYWAY, they've redesigned their online reservation system, and while I have screenshots of the new version, I never cared enough about the system to be able to notice what's different. It's in Remainders for pretty obvious reasons, I think. [Thanks, Grant!]

Gold-Dipped PS3 Slim: The Hot Holiday Gift (in Donald Trump's House)

The dudes at Computer Choppers have dipped a PS3 Slim in 24kt gold (along with two controllers) and will be selling them for an undisclosed price in a limited run of 5. To the only person reading this: Hey, Mr. Trump! More photos and price will be coming soon, so if you just toss me your email I'll be sure to let you know when you can finally get the current-gen gaming console to match your skyscraper. [Geeky Gadgets]

Sanyo's "Stick Booster" Looks and Sounds Far Dirtier Than It Is

Sanyo's "Stick Booster" name sounds like the kind of product you hear about in spam emails, and it looks mostly like a vibrator. But it's actually a pretty nice-looking gadget charger, once you realize what it's for, taking two AA batteries (rechargeables, of course; it's in Sanyo's green initiative line) and offering a USB port to charge your phone, camera, or whatever for about 90 minutes. It's available now for about $35. It winds up here in Remainders because it's definitely not the first AA-USB charger we've seen, although it might be the prettiest. [CrunchGear]

He says that uberlarge categories—"non-niche" ones, like PCs and phones that sell over 300 million units a year—won't be dominated by a single player. There'll be multiple guys in the game, and he still thinks "the software that's gonna be most popular in those phones is gonna be software that's sold by somebody who doesn't make their own phone."

Yes, this is the same Steve Ballmer who admits Microsoft boned Windows Mobile hard and is about to come out with some Microsoft-branded phones for youngsters. That's just a small of part of an interview that covers lots of ground and is definitely worth watching—it's a view of Ballmer you probably haven't seen before. [TechCrunch]

The whole thing is purely conceptual for now; it involves certain bacteria and ice nucleation and a lot of other science-y sounding words and phrases I don't understand. What I do understand is the phrase "It will snow ice cream," and what I wish I didn't understand is "The technology is a long ways off." Don't be fooled by the existence of an actual Cloud Project van—it's purely for illustrative purposes, and only functions as a regular ice cream truck/science information center.

Next up: Spaghetti. With a chance of meatballs. Get it? [The Cloud Project via Likecool

Gaming Factory's Chief Executive Officer Hans Pandeya describes the changes thusly:

Rosso describes the new Pirate Bay as a "resource-supported" model where royalty fees and other costs related to file sharing are subsidized by tying your PC's computing power into The Pirate Bay's network. "In short, the more computer resources the user contributes to The Pirate Bay, the more his content consumption is subsidized," Rosso wrote. The Pirate Bay will also charge a small mothly fee to its users; however, that fee can be reduced depending on how much of your own computing resources you contribute to The Pirate Bay.

As CNET notes, this would effectively turn The Pirate Bay into a direct competitor with services like Akamai and Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). In other words, The Pirate Bay has effectively ceased to be The Pirate Bay—and there is no real way to know if content providers are going to be into this. At any rate, details on the pricing structure have not been announced, but the question is will you continue to us the site when these changes are implemented? [Yahoo Tech]

Kotaku guesses that it could be something similar to Valve's SteamCloud service that stores your user data, save data and lets you download full games directly from their servers. But if it's something similar to OnLive, the service that lets you play games that are entirely streamed and rendered in a machine hosted somewhere else, that could be interesting as well. [Kotaku]

Setup on a Windows Mobile 6.1 phone (AT&T Tilt) was easy. Just download and install the package from the phone and you can pretty much start syncing from there.

The good news is, sync fairly well for the most part. Contacts, calendar and tasks are synced fine, but so are your text messages, your photos, your videos, music and documents—provided they're all under the 200MB cap. Contacts, calendar, and tasks are two-way, meaning you can create entries right on the web page. Photos, videos, music and docs are upload-able too, which makes this an easy way to transfer files onto your device OTA. Any inconsistencies (a calendar entry created on the phone went to the web fine, but one made on the web wouldn't sync to the phone) can most likely be attributed to this being a beta.

The downside is that this is (by default) only really useful for backing up your phone once a day. You can only schedule your phone to back up once a day or once a week or manually. It's definitely not push and it's definitely not meant to be. This is used for making sure your contacts and other phone data are always backed up, so you won't lose everything in case someone swipes your com.

One good use for this would be to sync multiple phones to the same data. You can attach more than one device to an account, so if you switch between work and home devices—or if you lose a phone—you can just sync up your data again. It's not live-updating push synchronization into the cloud, but it is a fairly good backup solution. [My Phone]

Here are the meaty bits in the string:

// Localized product category of GDrive
_CI_messages.CI_GDRIVE_CATEGORY = 'Online file backup and storage';
// Localized short description of GDrive (1st
// of 2 description lines)
_CI_messages.CI_GDRIVE_DESCRIPTION_1 = 'GDrive provides reliable storage for all of your files, including photos, music and documents';
// Localized short description of GDrive (2nd
// of 2 description lines)
_CI_messages.CI_GDRIVE_DESCRIPTION_2 = 'GDrive allows you to access your files from anywhere, anytime, and from any device - be it from your desktop, web browser or cellular phone';

GDrive might not offer truly unlimited storage, but if it's really going to host all of your files, including music and photos, and be a complete backup solution, it's gotta be pretty damn roomy. At least hundreds of gigabytes. One terabyte would have a nice ring to it.

Cloud services are getting big, even interesting finally, but the kind of stuff Apple and Microsoft are doing (or will soon be doing) is like small potatoes next to being able to access all of your files from anywhere on any computer or phone. This could be huge, and we're not just talking about the storage space. [Google via beu blog via Mashable]

Which is good news because I hardly use Office and find myself in Google Docs when I need to use a word processor or spreadsheet. If true, there's no doubt in my mind it'll require use of the paid MobileMe service, which is right now a bit over priced. Adding more functionality to the service is a great way to add value, but Google Docs is free. [9to5mac]

According to Electronista, Cloud launches within a few seconds, provides access to the internet, runs client apps (like Skype), as well as a variety of web apps, including a dock full of them from Google. In addition, Cloud is compatible with flash video and mp3s, giving users options for multimedia use within the OS. But Cloud is not meant to be a standalone solution. Instead, it will be packaged in netbooks alongside Windows XP, complete with a dock icon that will switch you over to the more robust operating system when more power is required.

Cloud is expected to be available early next year, when it is shipped alongside Gigabyte's Tablet Notebooks. [Good OS via Electronista]

While he does have a point—we haven't gotten to the point where cloud computing can take over traditional software—is it really as far away a possibility as he makes it seem? Microsoft already missed the internet search revolution, will it miss the next big thing too? [Portal Exame]

What's great about this tech is that because they render all this stuff serverside, this beautiful imagery can be streamed to even the crappiest of devices. Case in point, the leaked video above was shown on a Treo 700 at 240kbps while being rendered somewhere else. Hotness doesn't begin to describe something of this quality that can then be customized to your liking. [TechCrunch - Thanks Ariel!]

Says SD Times:

Midori’s design treats concurrency as a core principle, beyond what even the Microsoft Robotics Group is trying to accomplish, said Tandy Trower, general manager of the Microsoft Robotics Group.

The Midori documents foresee applications running across a multitude of topologies, ranging from client-server and multi-tier deployments to peer-to-peer at the edge, and in the cloud data center. Those topologies form a heterogeneous mesh where capabilities can exist at separate places.

In order to efficiently distribute applications across nodes, Midori will introduce a higher-level application model that abstracts the details of physical machines and processors. The model will be consistent for both the distributed and local concurrency layers, and it is internally known as Asynchronous Promise Architecture.

Sure, it's a possibility that this could just be a technology that will be integrated into a more conventional desktop-based Windows successor, or that Midori will stay in the Research wing like many Microsoft projects tend to do. But with so many industry players jumping into cloud computing (and with the Microsoft lifers involved in Midori "going back to their roots and writing code like they probably did in the old days," according to a previous rumor), the chances for something more ambitious are interesting to consider. [SD Times via The Register]