Year: 2004

Reporter’s Notebook: Keynote Observations

Posted by | Jan 7, 2004 | |

by Dennis Sellers – The long-awaited keynote yesterday was one that revolved mainly around music –- and Apple CEO Steve Jobs jammin’ with popular singer-songwriter-guitarist John Mayer… well, who could’ve known? Fueled by a large cup of mocha and a blueberry muffin, and dressed for speed in my old Nike running shoes, I was at the Moscone Center shortly after 7:00 a.m., to get in line for Steve Jobs’ speech. The press line itself was a cattle call, and the “general admission” line was… well, endless.

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FireWire version of VXA-2 PacketLoader announced

Posted by | Jan 7, 2004 | |

Exabyte Corporation has announced the release of the VXA-2 PacketLoader 1×10 1U with FireWire 800, which the company says is the first and only tape autoloader that features FireWire 800 connectivity in a 1U form factor. This autoloader, which will be available late in this quarter, provides two weeks of unattended backup (up to 1.6TB of capacity in ten 160 GB cartridges) and includes a rack mount kit, cables, backup software and a cleaning tape, at an suggested retail price of less than US$3,000.

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RealPlayer to play iTunes downloads; Real Store to work with iPod

Posted by | Jan 7, 2004 | |

RealNetworks plans Wednesday to launch a new version of RealPlayer for Windows that will play songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store. In addition, the new software will sport a built-in 99-cent digital music store that will offer downloads in Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) format that will be playable on Apple’s iPod. However, it appears that Real has not licensed Apple’s FairPlay digital rights management (DRM) technology in order to play music purchased from iTunes.

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