Details are scarce, but apparently Apple is making it hard to use non-special headphones with the new shuffle.

THX 4 PIC: Sontra

Information Week’s Alexander Wolfe gives a report on Microsoft’s new patented technique that they call “Stealthy audio watermarking”.

WHY IT WON’T WORK:

“Watermarking isn’t encryption and it doesn’t necessarily prevent unauthorized playback. On the other hand, it can serve in place of any other type of DRM, if the playback system (i.e., the MP3 player or online music store) requires the presence of the watermark before it’ll let you listen to your file.”

NOBODY IN THE FORSEEABLE FUTURE IS GOING TO BUY AN MP3 PLAYER THAT DOESN’T PLAY UNENCRYPTED FILES. AND NO COMPANY WOULD BE CRAZY ENOUGH TO SELL ONE.

Hahaha, sorry I’ll calm down. Even if it was ever implemented the players would be cracked and the watermarks would be stripped in a week or two tops, anyway.

To be fair to watermarking though, at least it doesn’t necessarily prevent fair use and content shifting like encryption schemes do.

THX 4 PIC: altemark

Michael Hopkins just wanted to watch a DVD that he bought. But it turns out the disc was defective due to Sony trying to DRM it too hard with some new mega ARccOS. Sony has known about this problem since April, but apparently, the broken discs are still available to buy in stores today. Anyway, if you do have a problem disc, it seems you are expected to do a bunch of Internet detective work until you figure out that you have to call Sony Pictures customer support (yes for a DVD) before you can get a replacement.

THX 4 PIC: Simon Davison

Amazon and Google are both introducing some new ebook offerings this fall.

Amazon is releasing some sort of fancy portable device (whatever) in October for downloading and reading their encumbered ebooks.  Amazon’s ebooks use the Mobipocket format.

ABOUT DRM’D MOBIPOCKET FILES:

• Propietary viewing software required.
• Online activation required.
• Tied to a limited number of devices.
• Their DRM activation server went down for 9 days during which time users could not transfer purchased books to their portable devices.

Google will be selling access to ebooks that you can only read online (ugh). At least you’ll have a choice of web browser there I guess.

BOOKS. ALL THIS HASSLE FOR BOOKS.

THX 4 PIC: vieux bandit
THX 4 LINK: Consumerist

HERE IS A BIOSHOCK LOL 4 U.

2k Tech JT sez “The other way to view this, is one USER has purchased the game. Not the whole family. So why should your brother play for free?”

NICE ONE

THX 4 PIC: One_From_RM
THX 4 LINK: Digg